David O. Russell Quotes

Serving jury duty is a fascinating little slice of life, with its motley crew of personalities.

I've led a grand jury.

I've served on five different juries, and many of them were bonkers in their own way.

In our system, we leave questions of fact to a jury. But to render a verdict, a jury must know the law. For this, we rely upon jury instructions. Instructions are supposed to translate the law into lay terms that the jury can apply to the facts as they determine them.

I vote and I do jury duty.

I have great faith in the jury system.

A jury is composed of twelve men of average ignorance.

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.

The grand jury, composed of 12 eminent New Orleans citizens, heard our evidence and indicted the defendant for participation in a conspiracy to assassinate John Kennedy.

The great thing about our system of democracy is when they call you for jury duty, you have to come... It's an honor and a privilege. I was called and I've got to be here.

Jury service is a duty as well as a privilege of citizenship; it is a duty that cannot be shirked on a plea of inconvenience or decreased earning power.

The jury system has come to stand for all we mean by English justice. The scrutiny of 12 honest jurors provides defendants and plaintiffs alike a safeguard from arbitrary perversion of the law.

I don't get into politics, general or musical, but just call me if you get jury duty. Even in New Jersey I was able to help somebody.

The humorist who invented trial by jury played a colossal practical joke upon the world, but since we have the system we ought to try and respect it. A thing which is not thoroughly easy to do, when we reflect that by command of the law a criminal juror must be an intellectual vacuum, attached to a melting heart and perfectly macaronian bowels of compassion.

I got jury duty and I didn't want to go, so my friend said, "You should write something really really racist on the form when you return it. Like, you should put 'I hate chinks'." And I said, "I'm not going to put that on there just to get out of jury duty. I don't want people to think that about me." So instead I wrote, "I love chinks." And who doesn't?

The jury system puts a ban upon intelligence and honesty and a premium upon ignorance, stupidity and perjury.

The goal, I think, of American education, for decades, and across many, many scholars, was basically to teach people broad lessons in how to live life, how to engage life, how to essentially be effective citizens and effective people.

Believe it or not, there are people who want to be on juries.

The kind of national goal we ought to be thinking about is way beyond national product - it is how do we as a nation help our children be the best kinds of people they could possibly be?

The great aim of our education is to bring out of the child who comes into our hands every faculty that he brings with him, and then to try to win that child to turn all his abilities, his powers, his capacities, to the helping and serving of the community which is a part.

Juries are not qualified to judge questions of law, but they are very capable of judging questions of fact.

A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.

The juries [are] our judges of all fact, and of law when they choose it.

Petty juries, consisting usually of twelve men, attend courts to try matters of fact in civil causes, and to decide both the law and the fact in criminal prosecutions. The decision of a petty jury is called a verdict.

I believe in the jury system.