~LAW~

CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

ENFORCEMENT

"We live in an age when pizza gets to your home before the police." ~Jeff Marder

"Frequent punishments are always a sign of weakness or laziness on the part of the government." ~Jean Jaques Rousseau

"It is the deed that teaches, not the name we give it. Murder and capital punishment are not the opposites that cancel one another, but similars that breed the same kind." ~George Bernard

"God said, 'Thou shalt not kill'--does the theft of a little money make it quite all right for us to do so? If it's said that this commandment applies only to illegal killing, what's to prevent human beings from similarly agreeing among themselves to legalize certain types of rape, adultery, or perjury?" ~Thomas More, Utopia

LAWS

"To retain respect for sausages and laws, one must not watch them in the making." ~Otto Von Bismark

"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich, as well as the poor, to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread." ~Anatole France

"If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so." ~Thomas Jefferson

...AND THOSE WHO BREAK THEM

"You allow these people to be brought up in the worst possible way, and systematically corrupted from their earliest years.  Finally, when they grow up and commit the crimes that they were obviously destined to commit, ever since they were children, you start punishing them. In other words, you create thieves, and they you punish them for stealing!" ~Thomas More, Utopia

"We're always making laws about them, but so far nothing has had the slightest effect." (regarding criminals) ~Thomas More, Utopia

"If you're not afraid of anything but prosecution, and have no hopes of anything after you're dead, you'll always be trying to evade or break the lawas of your country, in order to gain your own private ends." ~Thomas More, Utopia

LAWYERS

"The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers." ~William Shakespeare, Henry VI

"If it weren't for lawyers, we wouldn't need them." ~A. K. Griffin

IN GENERAL...

"'Instead of cleansing the sinful heart by its works, the law actually energizes, puts strength into, and increases sin in the soul. Even though it reveals and condemns sin, it doesn't have the power to conquer it.'" ~John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress

"The right to do something doesn't mean that doing it is right." ~William Safire

THE COURT SYSTEM

"When you go into court you are putting your fate into the hands of twelve people who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty." ~Norm Crosby

"We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don't know anything and can't read." ~Mark Twain

"A court is a place where what was confused before becomes more unsettled than ever." ~Henry Waldorf Francis

"A jury consists of twelve people chosen to decide who has the better lawyer." ~Robert Frost