Woo-hoo, didn't we tell you that "Redmond Justice" was getting good again? When the seven-judge appellate panel started grilling both Microsoft's and the government's lawyers with extra-tough questions on Monday, we had a feeling that we were only seeing the tip of the iceberg. There was something beneath the surface... something building in pressure... something nearly ready to explode with enough dramatic force to sear flesh from bone and make up for all those slow, tedious months while we suffered the boredom of endless brief filings. What we sensed was anger, people; raw, primal anger. And when it popped hard on Tuesday, the object of the judges' ire was neither Bill's boys nor the Justice Department. It was none other than (da-da-da-DUM!) Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson.

Yes, good ol' Judge Jackson was the big star in yesterday's courtroom firefight, despite the fact that he officially left the show when Microsoft appealed his verdict that the company should be split in two. At issue was the unseemly way in which Jackson was always willing and eager to talk to the press about the Microsoft case-- something that's a big no-no among the judicial set. Evidently the judges on the panel have been suppressing their rage for a long while, because when the topic arose, they each had a turn at giving Jackson a verbal tongue-lashing that, had Jackson actually been present, would likely have flayed him alive. Just check out The Register's coverage for all the juicy details.

It seems that, at least in the eyes of the appellate judges, Bad Boy Jackson erred heinously when he spoke to the press before the case was over and made comments likening Microsoft to "the Newton Street Crew crack cocaine distribution outfit" and His Billness himself to Napoleon Bonaparte. What, was that so wrong? Well, uh, apparently yes: "there are some who might suggest that it violates the whole oath of office," said Judge Edwards. Meanwhile, Judge Sentelle (described as "a normally easygoing Southerner") "raised his voice in anger" to shout, "What possible legitimate reason could you assign to a judge's going to reporters and making derogatory comments about parties to a lawsuit that had been tried in front of him, unless the judge were biased?" Ouch!

So even as Judge Jackson's off somewhere tooling around the country on his Harley and winning knife fights for liquor money, the impact of his willingness to chat still casts a mighty big shadow over this case. Our understanding is that Jackson's comments to the press aren't enough to warrant tossing the entire case out the window (as Microsoft predictably argues), but one thing's for sure: if the appellate court bumps the case back to a district judge, you can bet it won't be Judge Jackson. And that's just as well, since the man's already plenty busy knocking over banks and tearing tags off of mattresses.