"Lie is So Unmusical a Word"

Photo courtesy of
/www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/downtonabbey

Judge Carnes of the Eleventh Circuit has been providing entertaining opinions for years. I wrote about one of them here.

Earlier this week, Judge Carnes chose Maggie Smith's Dowager Countess from Downton Abbey to make his point about lying.

Judge Carnes' opinion in United States v. Hough, in which the defendant was convicted of tax fraud, begins:

It may be, as the Downton Dowager bemoaned, that “[l]ie is so unmusical a word,” but it strikes the right note for some of the statements that Dr. Patricia Lynn Hough made in her tax returns.

Happy Friday!