The New Mexico Wizard Hat Amendment: The Story Behind One of America's Oddest Proposed Laws

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Full disclosures at public.com slash disclosures. This is Lee Habib and this is Our American Stories. And we tell stories about everything here on this show. And we love your stories.

Send them to publicandstories.com. Everyone has that one funny friend. The wise guy. The one that's mastered pranks as clever comebacks or pulls humor out of the strangest situations. Maybe, well just maybe if you're lucky you're one of them.

But we all know at least one and they have the best stories. Today's wise guy Duncan Scott hails from the great state of New Mexico. When I was elected to the state senate in New Mexico in 1992, I was on a path of politics. But after I served four years in the state senate I concluded while it was an incredible honor to represent the people who were in my district, it was an absolute waste of my time. I was a republican. New Mexico is a heavily blue democratic state. So whatever republican principles or philosophy I brought to the state senate it was dead on arrival.

An educated monkey could have sat in my chair and it would have made no difference whatsoever for the arc of New Mexico history. When I did the pointy hat bill it was obvious to me that if I proposed serious legislation it wasn't going anywhere. And the pointy hat bill was really to address the insanity defense plea. So I thought that satire and humor was a better form for getting out the idea that the insanity defense is way over used and inappropriately than drafting some technical change on the rules of evidence that nobody would see and would fall asleep if they read.

Your listeners will have to go back to the summer of 94 and some will be alive. And my story with the pointy hat bill starts with O.J. Simpson. You'll recall he was driving with Al Dowling down the Santa Monica freeway in the white bronco and America was captured by it that night and I was watching it on TV and the commentators were saying O.J. will plead the insanity defense.

He's clearly done it and that's his only option. Of course later that proved not to be true but as I watched the white bronco and then reflected on it over the next few days I came to the idea that I would draft the pointy hat bill and introduce it when O.J. pled the insanity defense. So we now know that O.J.

not only didn't plead the insanity defense but he was acquitted in all charges by a jury the next year. So I drafted this bill and had it in my senate bill drawer not introduced and I would show it to some of my friends in the senate and they'd all have a good laugh and we yucked about it and I didn't think too much about it. Then one night a benign bill came out on the senate floor to re-license psychologists. There was a sunsetting provision and it was really an non-controversial bill and while it's on the floor a friend of mine who had seen my pointy hat bill turned around and said hey why don't you attach your bill as a floor amendment to that bill and I said that's a great idea, grab the senate. So my colleagues stood up and started debating the bill which gave me time to get out scissors and tape and I cut up my bill and taped it to a floor amendment sheet and ran it up to the reader of the senate. Now at that point normally the reader would photocopy the bill and distribute it to the 42 senators. Instead I asked permission for the reader to read my floor amendment. The Senate has to punctuate crucial elements of his testimony by stabbing the heir with a wand.

Whenever a psychologist or psychiatrist provides expert testimony regarding a defendant's competency the bailiff shall contemporaneously dim the courtroom lights and administer two strikes to a Chinese gong. Not surprisingly the senate got a good laugh and then I stood up because it's bad form to joke with people's bills so I asked to withdraw my amendment. Instead of the body allowing me to withdraw it, the senate passed my amendment.

So then I stood up and said I have so little control or power in this body I can't even kill my own bills. So at that point the benign licensing of psychologists now has my pointy hat bill on it and the sponsor of this benign bill, Senator Romero, was standing there sort of shell shocked and worse he had a psychologist next to him who was the expert to testify on the bill if needed and now his bill has my pointy hat amendment on it. So I went over and I apologized to Senator Romero and to the psychologist saying I did my best not to get it attached but here we go. And then the bill went over to the house stripped the amendment off, sent it back to the senate, we concurred and that's how the bill made its way through the legislative process really on a happy accident one night late at night. I did not run again and did not do much in terms of politics in New Mexico thereafter.

I really focused on my law practice, raising a son having a wonderful marriage and you know mom and pop stuff. I've had a wonderful life, it's been a great adventure but I was through with politics at that point. And great work to Joey for bringing us that piece and a special thanks to Duncan Scott, the greatest political prank in American history. The pointy hat bill and the story behind it here on Our American Stories. Go to OurAmericanStories.com now and go to the donate button and help us keep the great American stories coming.

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