May a jurist rule in verse, if he's dignified and terse?

Or are some texts meant to be wholly free of poetry?

A dissent last month by a justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, in seven quatrains and one footnote, drew a sharp response from two colleagues.

Chief Justice Stephen A. Zappala wrote that "an opinion that expresses itself in rhyme reflects poorly on the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania."

Justice Ralph J. Cappy said "every jurist has the right to express him or herself in a manner the jurist deems appropriate," but expressed concern about "the perception that litigants and the public at large might form when an opinion of the court is reduced to rhyme."

Justice J. Michael Eakin, who wrote the dissent, did not comment on the case but was cheerful and expansive on the topic of poetic justice.

"You have an obligation as a judge to be right," he said, "but you have no obligation to be dull."

The case that gave rise to his latest poem turned on whether a lie about an engagement ring should void a prenuptial agreement.

Louis Porreco had told his teen-age wife-to-be that the ring was worth $21,000, about half of her net worth at the time of the marriage. Porreco, who was 30 years older than his fiancee, was worth about $3 million. The agreement entitled her to a lump sum settlement of $3,500 per year if the marriage failed. After they separated, she discovered that the stone in the engagement ring was fake.

The majority ruled that Porreco's misstatement did not amount to fraud.

Eakin dissented, writing:

"A groom must expect matrimonial pandemonium

"When his spouse finds he's given her cubic zirconium.

"Given their history and Pygmalion relation

"I find her reliance was with justification."

Eakin has also ruled in rhyme in cases involving animals and car repair companies.

"I would never do it in a serious criminal case," Eakin said. "The subject of the case has to call for a little grin here or there."

Other judges have tried their hand at rhyme. In 1975, the Kansas Supreme Court censured a judge who sentenced a prostitute to probation in verse.

"On January 30th, 1974," he had written, "this lass agreed to work as a whore."

The supreme court objected, it said, not to the poetry but to its content, which had ridiculed the defendant.

Eakin said the people affected by his decisions were generally amused. He recalled the response of one lawyer on the losing end of a rhymed decision.

"He filed a motion for rehearing in seven limericks," the judge said.

"He told me it was easy to rhyme 'Eakin' and 'mistaken.' "