The wise old owl, the storytelling grandfather of the winged world. Much like an elephant they are fabled to never forget, rotating their heads and eyeballing anyone who questions their authority.

Now I imagine in a Doctor Doolittle movie you might want such an owl present at your court hearing but, here in the real world, things tend to work a little differently. That doesn’t matter one hoot to Charles Abbott though, who saw fit to bring a stuffed owl as his attorney to represent him in court.

Abbott was appearing in an Aspen, Colorado courthouse on charges of violating a protection order. Huffington Post reports:

In court, Abbott placed a fuzzy stuffed owl at the defense (sic) table and told the judge that the owl — named “Soloman” — would be his legal counsel until a public defender was assigned to the case…

“He’s a very sensitive guy, has law degrees from Yale, Harvard and Stanford…I think he’ll be able to represent me before a public defender comes online.”

Apparently the judge wasn’t taking the bait, refusing to acknowledge the owl and upholding the protection order. I think we can safely assume the owl isn’t the only thing that’s stuffed, and perhaps the rest of Aspen’s residents might do well to file their own protection orders.

[source:huffingtonpost]