Courtroom Quotes

“Mr Lorry asks the witness questions:

Ever been kicked?
Might have been.
Frequently? No. Ever kicked down stairs?
Decidedly not; once received a kick at the top of a staircase, and fell down stairs of his own accord.”
― Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“The courtroom is one instance of the fact that while our society may be liberal and democratic in some large and vague sense, its moving parts, its smaller chambers--its classrooms, its workplaces, its corporate boardrooms, its jails, its military barracks--are flagrantly undemocratic, dominated by one commanding person or a tiny elite of power.”
― Howard Zinn, You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train: A Personal History of Our Times

“To this it must be added, that life in a wig is to a large class of people much more terrifying and impressive than life with its own head of hair …”
― Charles Dickens, The Old Curiosity Shop

“There's a manner of speaking you use while lawyering. A manner as affected and rife with artifice as your average campaign speech, with a similar fear of offending.”
― Sergio De La Pava, A Naked Singularity

“I can’t believe you would represent a killer like that Jake. I thought you were one of us.
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‘Gotta have a lawyer, Helen. You can’t put the boy in the gas chamber if he doesn’t have a lawyer. Surely, you understand.’
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‘...I can’t imagine doing that for a living, representing killers and child rapists and such.’
‘How often do you read the Constitution?’
‘...the Constitution, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, says that a person accused of a serious crime must have a lawyer. And that’s the law of the land.”
― John Grisham, A Time for Mercy

“Courtrooms are battlegrounds where society’s bullies and the oppressed clash, where the victims of abusers seek recompense, and where parties cheated by scalawags seek retribution. Because of the high stakes involved, the parties are not always honest, and justice depends upon an array of factors including the prevailing case precedent, the skills of the legal advocates, and the merits of each party’s claims and counterclaims.”
― Kilroy J. Oldster, Dead Toad Scrolls

“Objection! This defendant, evil genius that he is, has through his abhorrent actions managed to racially discriminate against every race all at the same time, to say nothing of his unabashed slaveholding. The state of California feels that it has more than enough evidence to prove that the defendant is in abject violation of the Civil Rights Acts of 1866, 1871, 1957, 1964 and 1968, the Equal Rights Act of 1963, the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, and at least six of the goddamn Ten Commandments.”
― Paul Beatty, The Sellout

“The only thing that gave him away as a man on trial, rather than as a man on his way to work, were his poor fingers. He'd chewed his nails down to the soft meat and started in on his cuticles. Sweet Roy. The only thing my good man ever hurt were his own hands.”
― Tayari Jones, An American Marriage

“Whether in courtroom or classroom, it’s always nice to find room for decorum.”
― Vincent Okay Nwachukwu

“Win or lose, she’d still have the same billable earnings, same house, same family, whereas for Elizabeth, the trial’s outcome meant the difference between suburbia and death row.”
― Angie Kim

“Courtrooms (can) be exciting arenas where combating attorneys (fight) out issues of life and death, but there (is) nothing exciting about a courtroom where tired old loves (go) to die, or to be exhumed for delayed post-mortem.”
― Helen Nielsen

“The power of the bench is but the fear of the bar to prejudice its clients”
― B.S. Murthy

“Emotional intelligence understands the art and skill of authoritative argument before a judicial expert; as courtroom sessions communicate and operate with this case argument winner and loser method where the losers usually pay in a painful $ way!”
― Dr. Tracey Bond

“Still on mute, he bellowed in silence. No audience was forced to listen to him. Just Clarke in his little room screaming toward the heavens in silence.
Heavens? she thought. And she said softly, “No one in heaven’s listening. No one there’s gonna help him out.”
― Mark Shaiken, Unfair Discrimination

“he law is a blunt tool and though it makes tall claims of being
objective and neutral, in itself, the law is fragile and will not smash patriarchy. Rather, The courts have always favored the power structure and shielded those who are resourceful. The courtrooms, themselves as a symbol of authority, defend the values of supremacy and protect the oppressive
and regressive system. However, those on the margins with their conviction and belief in the values of democracy, justice, and the rule of law, need to shake the system. With individual or through collective action the marginalized are challenging the power structure and are compelling the state and the society to make social and political transformation at a larger level. Angela Davis said that “in a racist society it is not enough to be a non-racist. We must be anti-racist”. Similarly, here it may be derived that `in a patriarchal society, it is not enough to be a non-patriarchal. We must be anti-patriarchy’. The women with their sheer will and conviction are marching ahead to smash
patriarchy using law as an instrument of change. However, what is required is the radical interpretation of constitutional values by the courts and this should be strengthened by assuring the equal representation of women within the judiciary at all levels to open up the possibility of nondiscrimination within the patriarchal hostile settings.”
― Shalu Nigam