Alan Shore!

The talking Denny Crain bobblehead doll on my bookshelf is turning green with envy even as I write this. That’s because Alan Shore has won his first, and likely last, case before the Supreme Court.

Shore is the passionate lawyer on ABC drama Boston Legal who earlier this season argued in TV’s version of the High Court against applying the death penalty in child rape cases, although Shore’s argument was mostly an attack on the court as a protector of conservative values and businesses. But the case it was based on was a real one before the court.

In the Boston Legal version, the swing vote was expected to be Anthony Kennedy, though that is hardly a stretch.

The real Supreme Court decided this week that Shore was right, that execution was not the right punishment for child rape. The swing vote: Kennedy, who wrote the opinion for the 5-4 decision.

No word yet from the show’s producers on whether they will work that victory into a plotline for next year’s season, the show’s last on the network.