Joe Baca Quotes

The only chance women have for justice in this country is to violate the law

Mere access to the courthouse doors does not by itself assure a proper functioning of the adversary process.

Men's indignation, it seems, is more excited by legal wrong than by violent wrong; the first looks like being cheated by an equal, the second like being compelled by a superior.

There is no such thing as a criminal life. Life is life, and life is criminalized. No one ever, in the history of life, has chosen a criminal life. No one has ever said, 'I want to be a criminal.' No one ever has done that.

When I was a prosecutor in Kansas City, my job was to fight for justice and safety for all citizens in my community. Equal access to justice under the law is an American value embedded in the fabric of our legal and political system - the idea that anybody, powerful or not, can have their day in court.

Laws are spider webs through which the big flies pass and the little ones get caught.

People crushed by laws, have no hope but to evade power. If the laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to the law; and those who have most to hope and nothing to lose will always be dangerous.

Today, corruption has won and justice has lost. I brought corruption cases in good faith involving powerful people, and the political and legal establishment blatantly covered up and retaliated by targeting my law license.

My dream is to reform the legal system over the next 20 years.

Well you know, all law is about injustice.

Americans have grown a great deal more realistic about lawyers and the law. I think that's all for the good. A lot of people will say to you these days, 'If you are looking for justice, don't go to a courtroom.' That's just a more realistic perspective on what happens in the legal process.

There can be no criminal intent in resisting injustice.

To force a lawyer on a defendant can only lead him to believe that the law contrives against him.

If there are people who act outside the law, then the state must use legal means to impose law in the interests of majority. That's the way it's done in the U.S., and that's the way it's done in Russia.

China has not established the rule of law and if there is a power above the law there is no social justice. Everybody can be subjected to harm. I'm just a citizen: my life is equal in value to any other. But I'm thankful that when I lost my freedom so many people shared feelings and put such touching effort into helping me.

Our criminal justice system affirmatively depends on inequality.

The great can protect themselves, but the poor and humble require the arm and shield of the law.

Legal aid gets a bad press. Some rail against handing taxpayers' money to criminals; others attack fat cat lawyers, while some argue that we spend far more on legal aid than other countries. But let's get some facts straight: saying that legal aid is just about criminals is wrong - most goes to people before any decision is taken on their guilt.

Does being practical mean we prop up a legal system that's unfair, that bears its weight down on black men and black women, and by extension if you are Hispanic or indigenous or poor? Does being practical mean you don't say to the American people you deserve better than you're getting? That's not the practical we want.

Black and brown communities are significantly and disproportionately impacted by deficiencies in our criminal justice system.

No country could claim to be civilized if its legal system weren't available to everyone in it.

At the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey, I worked as an Outreach and Re-entry Coordinator and an Assistant U.S. Attorney. I have seen the best of our law enforcement community and the commitment that they have made to the public's safety. But I've also seen too many examples of where our system falls desperately short.

Money doesn't just buy a nice car; it also buys better education or healthcare. Increasingly, it can buy impunity from justice, a pliant media, favorable laws, business advantage, and even elections. This, in turn, perpetuates the policies that allow a tiny elite to accumulate ever more wealth at the expense of the majority.

So long as society is founded on injustice, the function of the laws will be to defend injustice. And the more unjust they are the more respectable they will seem.

The law is a system that protects everybody who can afford to hire a good lawyer.