A cat meme is a meme that, in some circles, is often associated with the lawyers in a case.
In the meme, a cat is depicted as the defendant and the words “I am a lawyer”.
In the United States, the cat meme has been a rallying cry for many years for those who believe that a person is innocent of a crime unless they can prove the crime was committed by a criminal.
The meme has become popular among lawyers in the US who believe a criminal conviction is a one-way ticket to a life of crime.
But some lawyers argue that the cat has become part of the way the criminal justice system works.
The Cat meme has gained momentum after the US Supreme Court ruled in 2014 that defendants cannot be held in jail without a warrant.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a longtime supporter of the cat, said in a speech in the early days of the new administration that she was inspired by a cat that had appeared in the courtroom.
“It has been my experience that people have an affinity for cats that is deeply connected to their experience of the criminal system,” she said.
“They like cats, they like cats and they like cat memes.
I’ve been a cat fan my whole life, so I think that’s why I love cats.”
Karen MacDougall, a partner at the New York law firm Wiley Rein LLP, said the cat was a meme for many reasons.
“I think it speaks to people who believe they are in a position to represent a defendant, who are confident in their ability to protect them, that they are not alone in being treated in a criminal justice setting and that it’s an acceptable place for that,” she told Al Jazeera.
“People who are fearful and fearful of the system, that’s the cat we’re seeing here.”
A cat meme was a common topic at the 2017 Women’s March, in which US women gathered outside the US Capitol to show their opposition to President Donald Trump’s proposed agenda.
Karen Jablonski, a spokeswoman for the Department of Justice, said there were no specific laws against the use of cats in legal proceedings.
“In recent years, the Department has taken several actions to combat the use and misuse of cat memes in courtrooms across the country, including the recent adoption of guidelines on the use, distribution, and misuse, of cat-related content,” she wrote in an email.
But Ms MacDougalls argued that cats have been used as symbols in the criminal-justice system for years.
“This meme reflects the idea that lawyers, judges and prosecutors are not seen as human beings.
The meme is meant to be a rallying point for those of us who believe we are entitled to a fair trial,” she added.
The cat meme first gained prominence in the late 1960s and 1970s when it was used in a courtroom in California to represent John T. Cacioppo, a defendant who was convicted of raping and murdering his wife in 1973.
Calls for the removal of the meme rose from lawyers, many of whom believed it was a way to discredit them and were angered by what they saw as the misuse of the symbol.
“The cat is a symbol for the criminal and criminal justice process,” said John Cavanagh, a New York lawyer who is president of the American Bar Association’s Criminal Law Society.
“So, it has to go.
It’s an unfortunate symbol of the adversarial system that is built on the foundation of a fair justice system.”
But if you remove it, it’s going to be seen as something that is really damaging to people in the legal system, so we have to work to restore the power of the symbolic to help bring people into the courtroom.
“The cat memes began to spread in the 1970s and 80s as the criminal legal system developed.
In 1985, the US Congress passed the Representation of the People Act, which allowed people to take a cat as evidence in criminal trials, even if it was illegal.
But lawyers say the legislation did not go far enough.”
Many of the cats have become symbols, a way for people to get away with doing things that were illegal in the past,” said Ms MacDouglas.
The US Supreme Justice Ruth Badey Ginsburg famously told a group of lawyers that they were “a symbol for justice”.
She said that was because she had spent much of her life representing people who were not necessarily guilty of the crimes that they claimed to have committed.
But many of her colleagues have been reluctant to remove the meme.
The first cat meme in the UK came in the 1990s when former prime minister Tony Blair was photographed in a cat costume in an attempt to discredit him as a politician.
The UK Supreme Court eventually ruled in 2010 that such symbols were not protected speech.
In 2016, the Supreme Court banned the use by anyone except the law enforcement authorities of “animal-related symbols”.
But in June this year, a US appeals court ruled in favour of a law