| " This just in: Citizens do not like it when they spot a judge snoozing during trial hearings. Thus concludes sleep specialist Dr. Ronald Grunstein of the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney, Australia, in a paper entitled "The Case of 'Judge Nodd' and other Sleeping Judges ? Media, Society, and Judicial Sleepiness." It was published in the May 1 issue of the journal Sleep. " " To reach this conclusion, Grunstein and coauthor Dr. Dev Banerjee reviewed media accounts of 15 cases of "judicial sleepiness," including a famous Australian case of 56-year-old Judge Ian Dodd ? who came to be known as 'Judge Nodd' for his habit of drifting off during legal argument and expert witness testimony." " Dodd nodded off during a shooting trial, a rape trial, a drug-smuggling trial. According to news reports, the defense lawyer got into the habit of passing notes to court staff to wake him up, and jurors complained about his loud snoring." " He was later diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea, and the drumbeat of stories, cartoons and outraged editorials in a local newspaper eventually led to mandatory health checks for all New South Wales judges." " The other sleepy judges examined in Grunstein and Banerjee's paper included ?
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