“It may be said at once that it any case no blame whatever attaches to the persons responsible for the framing of these charges, who are placed in a most difficult position by the appellant s unfortunate act. It is a principle of the English law that a person who appears in a police court has done something undesirable, and citizens who take it upon themselves to do unusual actions which attract the attention of the police should be careful to bring these actions into one of the recognized categories of crimes and offenses, for it is intolerable that the police should be put to the pains of inventing reasons for finding them undesirable. Is It a Free Country?”
“Law, being a practical thing, must found itself on actual forces. It is quite enough, therefore, for the law, that man, by an instinct which he shares with the domestic dog, and of which the seal gives a most striking example, will not allow himself to be dispossessed, either by force or fraud, of what he olds, without trying to get it back again. Philosophy may find a hundred reasons to justify the instinct, but it would be totally immaterial if it should condemn it and bid us surrender without a murmur.”
“To see triumph the nullities, see prosper the dishonor, see grow the injustice, to see agglomerate powers in the hands of the wicked, the man comes to discourage the virtue, laughing at the honor, ashamed to be honest.”
“The lawyer is not worth in the calm times; his great role is when he must take the power of the despots, presenting before the courts the supreme character of free peoples.”
“It is unfortunate that calling 911 may result in an incompetent or corrupt police officer being sent to you.”
“The police seem to be learning the hard way that the more abusive they are to people, the less people will cooperate with them.”
“I see an unexpected police stop as an opportunity to gather information on police corruption.”
“Expect to be blatantly harassed by the local utility company and corporate controlled law enforcement departments when investigating utility fraud.”
“Law enforcement ignoring crimes reported to them by the public is an illegal activity that they routinely engage in.”
“On lawyering: When the law is on your side, pound the law; when the facts are on your side, pound the facts; when neither is on your side, pound the table”
“I have one weapon, Mason said. It s a powerful weapon. But sometimes it s hard to wield it because you don t know just where to grab hold of it. What weapon is that? Della Street asked. The truth, Mason said.”
“At the end of the day you are your own lawmaker”
“Ideas about the withering away of the family found strong parallels in the political commitment to the withering away of law. The great majority of jurists shared the view that under socialism, morality and limited norms would supercede law and the state in governing social relations. A classless society would have no need of law to regulate and coerce human behavior. In the words of the jurist M. Kozlovskii, Law is born with the division of society into classes and it dies with the death of class society.”
“Would you approach a crazy person with a loaded gun? Well, that is exactly what you are doing with some police officers when you approach them.”
“ما هو القانون ؟ هل ما يوجد في الكتب، أم يُطبق بالفعل ، ويتبعه المجتمع؟ أم أنَّ القانون هو ما يجب تطبيقه و اتباعه ، سواء كان في الكتب أو لم يكن ، وإن كانت الأمور تسير على ما يرام أما لا ؟”
“Hiçbir ülkede hiçbir yasa iyi değildir. Nedeni apaçık ortada: Yasalar zamanına, yerine, gereksinmelere, olanaklara göre yapılmıştır.”
“As soon as you say, I m going to use the legal system to impose my will on you, you re buying into a lie, schlichtmann said. You ll get chaos, and the system will dissapoint you. You ll get decision-making that only makes sense in Bedlam. We think the legal system is there for us, but it s not. It s there only for itself.”