Courtroom Quotes - Page 2

• The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.

  H. L. Mencken

  Funny, Laughter, Humorous

  A Little Book in C Major ch. 4 (1916)

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• A lawyer once told a jury that the person his client stood accused of having killed was about to walk through the courtroom door. When the jurors looked startled, the lawyer asserted that if those jurors had wondered, even for one second that the victim might appear, that belief constituted enough reasonable doubt for them to find his client innocent.

  John Adams

  Doors, Law, Doubt

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• In representing criminal defendants - especially guilty ones - it is often necessary to take the offensive against the government: to put the government on trial for its misconduct. In law, as in sports, the best defense is often a good offense. The courtroom oath - to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth - is applicable only to witnesses... because the American justice system is built on a foundation of not telling the whole entire truth.

  Alan Dershowitz

  Sports, Government, Law

  "The Best Defense: The Courtroom Confrontations of America's Most Outspoken Lawyer of Last Resort - the Lawyer Who Won the Claus von Bulow Appeal". Book by Alan Dershowitz, 1982.

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• The problem with not having a camera is that one must trust the analysis of a reporter who's telling you what occurred in the courtroom. You have to take into consideration the filtering effect of that person's own biases.

  Lance Ito

  Cameras, Prejudice, Analysis

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• There's a lot more to competence than a law degree and a modicum of courtroom skill.

  Fred Thompson

  Law, Skills, Degrees

  "Choosing a New Supreme Court Justice". "Special Report With Brit Hume", www.foxnews.com. July 06, 2005.

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• Courtrooms contain every symbol of authority that a set designer could imagine. Everyone stands up when you come in. You wear a costume identifying you as, if not quite divine, someone special.

  Irving Kaufman

  Special, Costumes, Imagine

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• This is the time that I really miss being in my courtroom because I believe that that's the last place in this country where there's supposed to be fairness.

  Star Jones

  Country, Believe, Missing

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• People don't show up here (at the courtroom) because they believe evolution is bad science. They show up because they believe that if they accept evolution, then they are abandoning their religious beliefs. They see it as an either/or proposition: Either evolution happened, or God loves you.

  Eugenie Scott

  Religious, Love You, Believe

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• You can't handle the truth!

  Jack Nicholson

  Movie, Memorable, Great Year

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• While teaching, I also worked undercover in the lower courts by saying I was a young law teacher wanting experience in criminal law. The judges were happy to assist me but what I learned was how corrupt the lower courts were. Judges were accepting money right in the courtroom.

  Samuel Dash

  Teacher, Teaching, Law

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• I'd like to do my first record I ever made, A Church, a Courtroom, and Then Goodbye.

  Patsy Cline

  Goodbye, Farewell, Church

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• Jurors want courtroom lawyers to have some compassion and be nice.

  Johnnie Cochran

  Nice, Compassion, Want

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• Lawsuits should not be used to destroy a viable and independent distribution system. The solution lies in the marketplace and not the courtroom.

  Don Henley

  Lying, Independent, Used

  "Music stars, reps clash in Congress over Napster" by Richard Stenger, www.cnn.com. April 7, 2001.

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• I know the pundits and the news media have carried a lot of commentary about cameras in the courtroom, and theres a lot of controversy about it as a result of the Simpson case. But I have not had enough time to step back and enough time to evaluate that.

  Lance Ito

  Media, Cameras, Enough Time

  "Ito: 'What you see is what's there'". www.cnn.com. October 24, 1995.

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• Banks and churches and courtrooms all depend on the appurtenances of theatre. On illusion. Banks, the illusion of stability and honourable dealings to the rot and corruption of capitalist exploitation. Churches the illusion of sacred sanctuary of purposes of pacifying social discontent. Courtrooms of course designed to promote the illusion of solemn justice. If there was true justice why would such trappings be necessary? Wouldn't a table and chairs and an ordinary room serve just as well?

  E. L. Doctorow

  Tables And Chairs, Justice, Church

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• You're gonna need a bigger boat.

  Peter Benchley

  Inspirational, Movie, Radio News

  "Fictional character: Chief Martin Brody". "Jaws", www.imdb.com. June 20, 1975.

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• I would wipe my tears, and walk out of the stall and the bathroom, and march myself back into that courtroom because the only way that I could deal with Keith's [ Griffin] murder was to feel like I was doing something about it. In retrospect, what did I do? I know that I put a lot of bad guys in jail and if I kept them off the street one day more, that may have been one less crime victim.

  Nancy Grace

  Jail, Guy, One Day

  Source: www.cosmopolitan.com

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• Honesty is a virtue, but not the only one. If you're in a courtroom you need the whole truth and nothing but the truth; in the living room, sometimes you need anything but. Often.

  Judith Martin

  Honesty, Needs, Rooms

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• Boy, you'll have a fair trial. Race, creed or color, justice will be done in my courtroom.

  Laurence Stallings

  Boys, Equality, Race

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• I love being in a courtroom.

  Kamala Harris

  Love Is

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• I haunted streets, whorehouses, police stations, courtrooms, theater stages, jails, saloons, slums, madhouses, fires, murders, riots, banquet halls and bookshops. I ran everywhere in the city like a fly buzzing in the works of a clock, tasted more than any fit belly could hold, learned not to sleep, and buried myself in a tick-tock of whirling hours that still echo in me.

  Ben Hecht

  Sleep, Cities, Jail

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• Courtroom : A place where Jesus Christ and Judas Iscariot would be equals, with the betting odds favoring Judas.

  H. L. Mencken

  Jesus, Odds, America

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• Dimitri. I hadn't known he was here. His eyes were on me too,dark and endless. Only I couldn't read what he was feeling. His face betrayed nothing, but there was something in his eyes...something intense and intimidating. The image of him ready to take down that group of guardians flashed through my mind,and something told me that if I asked,He would fight his way to me through this courtroom and do everything in his power to rescue me from it.

  Richelle Mead

  Eye, Fighting, Dark

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• Ordinarily, a person leaving a courtroom with a conviction behind him would wear a somber face. But I left with a smile. I knew that I was a convicted criminal, but I was proud of my crime.

  Martin Luther King, Jr.

  Leaving, Criminals, Proud

  Martin Luther King (Jr.) (1968). “I Have a Dream: The Quotations of Martin Luther King, Jr”

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• Life would be a lot easier if conversations were rewindable and erasable, like videos. Or if you could instruct people to disregard what you just said, like in a courtroom.

  Sophie Kinsella

  Life, People, Would Be

  Sophie Kinsella (2009). “The Secret Dreamworld Of A Shopaholic: (Shopaholic Book 1)”, p.55, Random House

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