Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Quotes

And let the sheriffs who have arrested them bring them before the justice without any other summons.

We have far more plea bargains in our system than we do trials.

A point concerning property, which ought, for the reasons I have just mentioned, to be most speedily decided, frequently exercises the wit of successions of lawyers, for many generations .… But the question concerning a man’s life, that great question in which no delay ought to be counted tedious, is commonly determined in twenty-four hours at the utmost. It is not to be wondered at that injustice and absurdity should be inseparable companions.

Trial. A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of judges, advocates and jurors.

Ordinary lawsuits shall not follow the royal court around, but shall be held in a fixed place.

Remember, that his duty and his business is, not to make the law but to interpret and apply it

Whate'er is best administered is best," may truly be said of a juridical system, and the due distribution of justice depends more upon the rules by which suits are to be conducted, than on the perfection of the code by which rights are defined.

I don't care what the law is, tell me who the judge is.

Delay in the administration of justice is the outstanding defect of our Federal judicial system. It has been a cause of concern to practically every one of my predecessors in office. It has exasperated the bench, the bar, the business community and the public.... To speed justice, to bring it within the reach of every citizen, to free it of unnecessary entanglements and delays, are primary obligations of our government.

Do we leave our rights to the hopeful wisdom of the courts or to the elusive whim of the masses?

Of course the law's up for grabs. That's why you win elections and appoint judges.

Legal process is an essential part of the democratic process.

It is very important to know the law, but it is more important to know the judge

It is revolting to have no better reason for a rule of law than that so it was laid down in the time of Henry IV.

Law is the prophecy of what a court will do.

No nation can answer for perfect exactitude of proceedings in all their inferior courts. It suffices to provide a supreme judicature where all error and partiality will be ultimately corrected

A judge's duty is to grant justice, but his practice is to delay it: even those judges who know their duty adhere to the general practice.

In the present disturbed state of the city I will appeal not only to them, but to all persons who love God and revere the holy Catholic religion which they profess, to respect also the laws of man and the peace of society, to retire to their homes with as little delay as possible, and disconnect themselves from the seemingly deliberate attempt to disturb the peace and social rights of the citizens of New York. If they are Catholics, or of such of them as are Catholics, I ask, for God's sake, for the sake of their holy religion, for my sake, if they have any respect for the episcopal authority, to dissolve their association with reckless men who have little regard for Divine or human law

there shall be in every court, three justices or commissioners, who shall sit with the twelve men of the neighborhood, with them to hear all causes, and to assist the said twelve men of the neighborhood in case of law; and that they the said justices shall pronounce such judgment as they shall receive from, and be directed by the said twelve men in whom only the judgment resides, and not otherwise.

The purpose of a jury is to guard against the exercise of arbitrary power—to make available the commonsense judgment of the community as a hedge against the over- zealous or mistaken prosecutor and in preference to the professional or perhaps overconditioned or biased response of a judge.

… a clear abuse of judicial power

Judges are objects of aversion and distrust.

There is not, in the whole compass of human affairs, so noble a spectacle as that which is displayed in the progress of jurisprudence; where we may contemplate the cautious and unwearied exertion of a succession of wise men, through a long course of ages, withdrawing every case, as it arises, from the dangerous power of discretion, and subjecting it to inflexible rules.

The law itself is on trial in every case as well as the cause before it.

Trial by jury slows the wheels of justice.