This article is classified "Fictional"
Impartial; honest; hard-working; scholarly; trustworthy; compassionate; wise. None of these words have ever been used to describe Junior Justice Lipo Ligantis of the Galactic Supreme Court. He is famous, or rather infamous, as the second-best-known judicial figure in galactic history [ Ed. note: after His High Judgmental Supremacy, Judiciary Pag L.I.V.R. ] for his ability to take any excellent idea, any wise decision, or any personally compromising situation, and stand it on its head to his own advantage. Lipo Ligantis began his climb to fame like so many of his fellow lawyers, corporate executives, movie producers, and paranoid homicidal maniacs: as a play-by-play announcer for Brockian Ultra Cricket. During one fateful match, the tri-D picture feed was lost, but Lipo Ligantis continued to describe the senseless violence, the blood, the mayhem, the acts of carnage and depravity, and the sincere apologies, with such flair and panache that his viewership rating not only held steady, but actually grew at a remarkable rate so that, four hours later when the picture feed was finally repaired, Lipo's descriptions no longer bore the slightest resemblance to what was actually happening on the playing field. The network executives, quick to spot the trend, called their accountants, who in turn called their sponsors' accountants, who in turn called the playing teams' accountants, who called the team managers, who called the coaches, and thereafter every game of Brockian Ultra Cricket was carefully choreographed to follow Lipo's pre-written format. The game, the network, and Lipo Ligantis were all rocketing in popularity when, during one such game, it was suddenly revealed that the whole thing was a hoax. It was then that he first showed his genius for quick thinking. Facing the horrible wrath of ten billion upset Brockian Ultra Cricket fans, Lipo hastily handed out musical instruments to all the players, thereby launching the career of what immediately became one of the most popular heavy metal rock bands in galactic history, while Lipo's play-by-play scripts became the most listened-to and most often-quoted rock lyrics of that era. During his career as a rock band manager, Lipo Ligantis' fame continued to grow because of his well-publicized acts of unspeakable cruelty, his drug deals of astonishing scope and intricacy, and his speeches of breathtaking arrogance (and, occasionally, political subversion), all of which he performed on stage while introducing his band at live concerts. His OFF-stage activities are rather too numerous to summarize here; they can be found in The Annals of Galactic Jurisprudence Volumes 1345-1521. At his peak, in addition to managing the rock band, Lipo Ligantis was successfully defending himself in over 1358 criminal and civil cases simultaneously. He then disappeared into the shadowy underworld of recording company executives and music publication deals. Nothing is known of his activities except that, two years later, he emerged with a 75 percent controlling interest in every major musical group then existing. [ Ed. note: due to our failure to receive any reports during the last week, we are once again opening up the post of Recording Industry Correspondent. Orphans only need apply. ] It was at this point that then Galactic President Thralby Twobedo appointed Lipo Ligantis to the Supreme Court. For the next two years, the most watched channels on the sub-etha bands were those carrying the Galactic Senate's confirmation hearings. Meanwhile, with the attention of the Senate, the media, and the entire galactic law enforcement community fixed on the past and present activities of Ligantis, President Twobedo and his administration were able to systematically pillage the government of practically all of its assets and then slip into immensely wealthy and inexplicably obscure retirement. When Ligantis was finally allowed to speak in his own behalf at the Senate hearings, he did not deny any of the charges leveled against him. Instead, he argued with such eloquence, that since he had personally broken virtually every law ever written he was in a very good position to adjudicate such matters, that he was confirmed unanimously. Justice Lipo Ligantis' dialectic skills served him well on the Court, where he wrote some of the most famous dissenting opinions ever conceived. Among the most remarkable are "Impoverished Citizens of Beyard Minor vs. the Military Industrial Complex," in which he argued that peacetime is the best time to spend massive amounts of money to develop new weapons systems (there are fewer distractions then); "Teachers Association vs. the Galactic Board of Education" in which he showed that the best way to raise children to be good, intelligent, happy, and hard-working citizens is to forbid schools from teaching any systematic form of morality whatsoever; "The State vs. Allegra Pileria" in which he ruled that in order for the police to arrest anyone, they must first have a letter signed by a judge stating their intention NOT to arrest the individual (thereby insuring "good faith" on the part of the police); and "The Galactic Supreme Court vs. Junior Justice Lipo Ligantis" in which he reasoned that the rulings of the Court itself were invalid and that therefore only his own dissenting opinions had the force of law. It was of course because of his ability to present utter nonsense in such a compelling form, as demonstrated in these decisions and many more like them, that, upon his retirement from the Court, Ligantis was immediately offered the job of President of the Marketing Division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, a post which he held until his final, highly-publicized, utterly mysterious, and completely predictable, disappearance. There can be little doubt that Lipo Ligantis' presence on the Court caused a great deal of resentment among his fellow Justices, not to mention the entire legal community. Ligantis could virtually determine the Court's position on any case simply by advocating the opposite view. Indeed, most scholars at the Ligantis Institute for Clever Thinking today agree that this is precisely what he did, although his dissenting opinions were so well-argued that they frequently became law a few years later anyway. However, a growing minority of scholars argue that THIS in fact is what Justice Ligantis had in mind all along.