From a brief filed in the California Court of Appeal:
This narrowly tailored remedial solution would have avoided the striking of appellant’s Answer and his default and allowed the court to proceed with the case on its merits. Also, this solution would not have placed respondents in a position better than they were before the discovery dispute, saving the case to be determined on its merits, a jurisprudential preference in all but Sharia law!
A puzzle for law students: Identify at least three — and preferably more — reasons why the last part of the second sentence (“a jurisprudential preference in all but Sharia law!”) is likely to be counterproductive.
I should note — to preempt the likely speculation — that, judging by his name, the author of the brief appears to be West African by birth or extraction, so don’t assume that the origin of his hostility to Sharia is the same as it is among many of the Americans who broadly denounce Sharia; rather, the hostility might stem from the clashes between Muslims and non-Muslims in West Africa. (It’s hard to know for sure, of course.) But my point here isn’t about the motivations of the writer: It’s about the likely effect of such arguments on readers.