Judge Noel Cannon, the “Miniskirt Judge”
Los Angeles Municipal Court Judge Noel Cannon gained national fame due to her flamboyant fashion style and eccentric habits. She liked to wear babydoll dresses and miniskirts. So she became known as the "miniskirt judge."
Her eccentric habits included decorating her judicial chambers entirely in pink, holding her pet chihuahua on her lap during cases, and keeping a mechanical canary in her chambers whose chirping could be heard during court proceedings.
She reached the peak of her fame in 1967 thanks to a widely published picture of her brandishing a pearl-handled Derringer revolver. She was demonstrating to the press how she would defend herself if attacked.
Her downfall started in 1972 when a police officer pulled up beside her while she was driving and told her she was using her horn excessively. She was, and he was right to tell her so, but he didn't know she was a judge. She cursed him out, drove off, and later ordered him into her court and threatened that if he ever crossed her again she would give him "a .38 caliber vasectomy."
By 1975, the California Supreme Court had removed her from the bench. The incident with the police officer wasn't the only reason. She was also accused of "abusing her contempt power, interfering with the attorney-client relationship by arbitrarily appointing new counsel, interfering with bail and bench warrants, setting unreasonable bail amounts, intimidating defense attorneys, abusing the prerogatives of her high office, engaging in curt and rude conduct, [and] engaging in 'bizarre' behavior."
She subsequently disappeared from public life and died in 1998.
For more details, the Los Angeles Public Library has a two-part article that tracks her rise and fall: "Loose Cannon: Reassessing Los Angeles Municipal Judge Noel Cannon" Part 1, Part 2
Her eccentric habits included decorating her judicial chambers entirely in pink, holding her pet chihuahua on her lap during cases, and keeping a mechanical canary in her chambers whose chirping could be heard during court proceedings.
She reached the peak of her fame in 1967 thanks to a widely published picture of her brandishing a pearl-handled Derringer revolver. She was demonstrating to the press how she would defend herself if attacked.
Her downfall started in 1972 when a police officer pulled up beside her while she was driving and told her she was using her horn excessively. She was, and he was right to tell her so, but he didn't know she was a judge. She cursed him out, drove off, and later ordered him into her court and threatened that if he ever crossed her again she would give him "a .38 caliber vasectomy."
By 1975, the California Supreme Court had removed her from the bench. The incident with the police officer wasn't the only reason. She was also accused of "abusing her contempt power, interfering with the attorney-client relationship by arbitrarily appointing new counsel, interfering with bail and bench warrants, setting unreasonable bail amounts, intimidating defense attorneys, abusing the prerogatives of her high office, engaging in curt and rude conduct, [and] engaging in 'bizarre' behavior."
She subsequently disappeared from public life and died in 1998.
For more details, the Los Angeles Public Library has a two-part article that tracks her rise and fall: "Loose Cannon: Reassessing Los Angeles Municipal Judge Noel Cannon" Part 1, Part 2
Comments
There's another female Judge Cannon who has been in the news lately and has been referred to as a loose cannon.
Posted by ges on 02/10/25 at 04:47 PM
Derringers are not revolvers.
Posted by Mike B on 02/21/25 at 02:54 PM
Mike -- I know very little about guns, but that detail also struck me as questionable (it was reported as being a Derringer revolver). So before posting, I googled the difference between a revolver and pistol, and google said it was down to the way ammunition is loaded: a magazine or a revolving cylinder. What she's holding doesn't look like it has a magazine, so I figured that must make it a revolver. But like I said, I don't know much about guns. If it's not a revolver, what is it?
Posted by Alex on 02/21/25 at 05:26 PM
It's a break action pistol.
Ever watch a British movie of the 1930s-1950s where they are hunting pheasants, grouse, etc. with shotguns? After they shoot, they flip a lever to unlock the barrel from the action/stock, 'breaking' the gun open to reveal the back end of the barrel(s) so they can extract the spent shells. Typically, they rest the 'hinge' on their forearm with the barrel pointed down and the stock level under their arm ( a well-groomed gentleman wearing a jacket with leather on the sleeves, a hunting dog at his feet, and a shotgun broken over his arm is a quintessentially British image).
The principle concept behind revolvers (cylinders) and automatics (magazines) is to have more shots than barrels. The downside is they require a mechanism to bring the next round up to the barrel. As a single-shot break action, a Derringer doesn't need that, so they're much smaller, making them easier to carry and conceal (adding a second barrel to a Derringer gives you a bit more of an option but still doesn't take up quite as much room/weigh as much, as the mechanism of a revolver or automatic).
I suspect where your google went aglee is that a revolver is a pistol. "Difference between a revolver and a pistol" is like asking: "difference between a Great Dane and a dog." No search engine is sufficiently refined to point out such incongruities and so defaults to what most people have searched. In this case, it was probably 'difference between a revolver and a semi-auto' but google couldn't be bothered to tell you it was changing your keywords to fit its available responses.
A quick and dirty list of general types:
Single shot:
break action (Thompson Center Contender, most .22 caliber plinking pistols)
bolt action (Savage 110 PCS)
Semi-auto:
magazine (Glock, .45 ACP)
clip (Mauser C96)
Revolver: many
Ever watch a British movie of the 1930s-1950s where they are hunting pheasants, grouse, etc. with shotguns? After they shoot, they flip a lever to unlock the barrel from the action/stock, 'breaking' the gun open to reveal the back end of the barrel(s) so they can extract the spent shells. Typically, they rest the 'hinge' on their forearm with the barrel pointed down and the stock level under their arm ( a well-groomed gentleman wearing a jacket with leather on the sleeves, a hunting dog at his feet, and a shotgun broken over his arm is a quintessentially British image).
The principle concept behind revolvers (cylinders) and automatics (magazines) is to have more shots than barrels. The downside is they require a mechanism to bring the next round up to the barrel. As a single-shot break action, a Derringer doesn't need that, so they're much smaller, making them easier to carry and conceal (adding a second barrel to a Derringer gives you a bit more of an option but still doesn't take up quite as much room/weigh as much, as the mechanism of a revolver or automatic).
I suspect where your google went aglee is that a revolver is a pistol. "Difference between a revolver and a pistol" is like asking: "difference between a Great Dane and a dog." No search engine is sufficiently refined to point out such incongruities and so defaults to what most people have searched. In this case, it was probably 'difference between a revolver and a semi-auto' but google couldn't be bothered to tell you it was changing your keywords to fit its available responses.
A quick and dirty list of general types:
Single shot:
break action (Thompson Center Contender, most .22 caliber plinking pistols)
bolt action (Savage 110 PCS)
Semi-auto:
magazine (Glock, .45 ACP)
clip (Mauser C96)
Revolver: many
Posted by Phideaux on 02/22/25 at 01:24 PM
Category: Law | Judges | 1960s | 1970s