Errata.

Due to an editing error, Miami Heat basketball star Dwyane Wade's name was misspelled in a story in the July 15 News. In the same story, Bar President-elect Frank Ramon Angones' middle name was misspelled and he graduated from LaSalle High School.

I'll bet (pun) Baron de Montesquieu, in writing his great treatise The Spirit of the Laws on governments in 1748, found the seed of his idea of a tripartite government with its accompanying checks and balances from this game. His treatise greatly influenced the forming of our government and the framing of constitutions--both federal and state.

Thus, I opine that the judge and the lawyers involved, if charged with gambling with other peoples' rights, money, or property (I guess their respective clients agreed), could find constitutional authority that the checks and balances clauses of the Constitution find their basis in this ancient game...