Marcus Tullius Cicero Quotes
More law, less justice.
The Senator was arguing against a bill to correct an aspect of the immigration law where infants and very young clildren are broght to the United States by parents who entered illegally. The children grow up in the United States—the only country and home that they have ever known. American law required that they be deported to “their countries” which they have no memory of and many do not even speak the language or know the culture. Sessions, is an example of the view that law defines justice. Therefore laws cannot be unjust nor can enforcing the law. Opponents point out that even in the United States we have, in earlier times, “enforced the law” which we came to regret and see as an injustice. The Fugitive slave laws, the Southern racial discrimination laws, and the law allowing Japanese American Citizens to be interned and lose their land during WWII are a few examples of laws, the enforcement of which is seen by most Americans as having been unjust. The execution of “witches” in early America was in conformity with the law.
Watkins was the first Dallas County Black DA. He was being interviewed because DNA testing proved that a man who had served 30 years in prison for rape and robbery, could not have committed the crime, and he had just been released. Watkins quotation was very significant because it set forth a philosophy that while extant in other areas of the country is almost unheard of in Texas, where there have been more innocent men convicted than in any other state. DAs in Texas usually fight every attempt to examine old evidence with modern tools.
Bruce is one of the few American Comedians to so offend the political establishment that he was constantly legally harassed throughout his career. He was actually criminally convicted in New York for obscenity. In 2003 he was posthumously pardoned by the New York Governor, the first posthumous pardon in state history.
Marcus Tullius Cicero was a Roman statesman, orator, lawyer and philosopher, who served as consul in the year 63 BC. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the Roman equestrian order, and is considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.
