Justice Alito and Socrates

Tuesday night I personally witnessed Justice Alito overturn a death sentence for the first time in his career. Too bad the defendant has been dead for almost 2,500 years and it was a moot court.

The Shakespeare Theatre Company put on a moot court to appeal the death sentence of the Greek philosopher Socrates. It was a fantastic evening, worth every bit of the $20 I paid for admission. The audience and the judicial panel both voted to overturn the sentence after real big-wig Washington attorneys argued both sides of the case. Here's a write up from the D.C. Examiner.

That was Justice Samuel Alito presiding Tuesday night at a special judicial proceeding. No, the Supreme Court hasn't convened early this year. Alito's bench was at the Shakespeare Theatre Company's Harman Hall, where he presided over a mock appeal on behalf of Socrates.

In the fundraiser for the company, the great Greek philosopher had appealed his 2,500-year-old conviction and death sentence for impiety and corrupting the youth of Athens. He had good counsel, too, in Abbe Lowell of McDermott Will and Emery, who has represented President Clinton, Gary Condit and Jack Abramoff. Lowell appeared with Abe Krash of Arnold and Porter, opposing the lawyers for Athens, Betty Jo Christian and Pantelis Michalopoulos, both of Steptoe and Johnson.

Among the five-judge panel, Alito made the first query of counsel, asking Krash about whether Socrates was indeed a threat to the community. "If the state is strong, the state has no threat from a gadfly" like Socrates, said Alito. "But what if the state is teetering, as Athens may have been" at the time?

Also getting in some verbal jabs were federal judges Paul Michel, Rosemary Collyer, Brett Kavanaugh and Richard Leon.