court trials Quotes

“And twelve more white men had stopped whatever they were doing to listen and pass on what happened between Janie and Tea Cake Woods, and as to whether things were done right or not. That was funny too. Twelve strange men who didn’t know a thing about people like Tea Cake and her were going to sit on the thing. Eight or ten white women had come to look at her too. They wore good clothes and had the pinky color that comes of good food. They were nobody’s poor white folks. What need had they to leave their richness to come look on Janie in her overalls? But they didn’t seem too mad, Janie thought. It would be nice if she could make them know how it was instead of those menfolks.”

“In a way, they seemed to be arguing the case as if it had nothing to do with me. Everything was happening without my participation. My fate was being decided without anyone so much as asking my opinion.”

“Neither of the two men, at these times, showed the least hostility toward me, and everything went so smoothly, so amiably, that I had an absurd impression of being ‘one of the family.‘”

“But all the long speeches, all the interminable days and hours that people had spent talking about my soul, had left me with the impression of a colorless swirling river that was making me dizzy.”

“For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury”

″‘I hit him, sir,’ said Jurgis. ‘Say ‘your Honor,″ said the officer, pinching his arm hard. ‘Your Honor,’ said Jurgis, obediently. ‘You tried to choke him?’ ‘Yes, sir, your Honor.’ ‘Ever been arrested before?’ ‘No, sir, your Honor.’ ‘What have you to say for yourself?’ Jurgis hesitated. What had he to say? In two years and a half he had learned to speak English for practical purposes, but these had never included the statement that some one had intimidated and seduced his wife.”

“The Counsellor, who was present, had prepared an answer, and had resolved to resume all I had said, according to the formality of a debate, in which things are generally repeated more faithfully than they are answered, as if the chief trial to be made were of men’s memories.”

“Jo, if this goes to court, they won’t need a lawyer, they’ll need a priest.”

“You can’t handle the truth. You can’t handle the sad but historic reality.”

“You don’t even know me. Normally it takes someone hours to discover I’m not fit to handle a defense.”

“I’m not going to trip him. I’m gonna lead him right where he’s dying to go. ”

“Sir, a Code Red is a disciplinary action brought against a Marine who’s fallen out of line.”

Kaffee “Do you disagree?” Jessup “Certainly not in principle. I disagree only inasmuch as I disagree that a paraplegic is entitled to foxtrot. It’d be nice, it just ain’t possible.”

“My friends of Hillsboro, you know why I have come here. I have not come merely to prosecute a lawbreaker, an arrogant youth who has spoken out against the Revealed Word.”

“Now what will Drummond do? He’ll try to make us forget the lawbreaker and put the law on trial.”

“MELINDA. (Calling to HOWARD across the courtroom) Which side won? HOWARD. (Calling back) I ain’t sure. But the whole thing’s over!”

“I can’t imagine the world without Matthew Harrison Brady.”

“If [the jury] sees it as a contest between the defense and the prosecution as to who’s lying, they’ll vote for the prosecution. The prosecutor walks around looking very important. No one is accusing her of being a bad person. They’re accusing you of being a monster. They jury can ask itself, Why should the prosecutor lie?”

“Cases are won on closing arguments only on television, not in a real courtroom.”

“It’s funny, but when I’m sitting in the courtroom, I don’t feel like I’m involved in the case. It’s like the lawyers and the judge and everybody are doing a job that involves me, but I don’t have a role.”

“Katherine Tyler, though art here accused that not having the fear of God before thine eyes thou hast had familiarity with Satan the grand enemy of God and man, and that by his institution and help thou hast in a preternatural way afflicted and done harm to the bodies and estates of sundry of His Majesty’s subjects, in the third year of His Majesty’s reign, for which by the law of God and the low of the Colony thou deservest to die.”

“But when, at the Assize Court, he brought in the key to the whole case, he did not tell the whole truth. He only allowed so much of it to appear as sufficed to ensure the acquittal of an innocent man.”