Courtroom Dynamics Quotes

A good lawyer knows the law; a clever one takes the judge to lunch.

People need to trust what gardai say on the stand, and I can understand that perhaps in a scenario whereby lots of things are happening quickly and people are caught up in the heat of the moment, they may have a recollection that isn't exactly as things happened.

It has something to do with the facts and the law and who the judges are. So I think lawyers sometimes exaggerate their role in winning and losing. Lawyers do have a role, and a major role, but they're not the only players in this game.

Questions for questions. You're a man who's spent time at court.

I'm no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and in the jury system -- that is no ideal to me, it is a living, working reality. Gentlemen, a court is no better than each man of you sitting before me on this jury. A court is only as sound as its jury, and a jury is only as sound as the men who make it up.

There is no more moving a professional relationship than that between a law clerk and a Supreme Court justice. As a place to work, the court is unique in its intimacy and intensity.

The district attorney carries the courthouse. Whatever party the district attorney belongs to, will also be the party of the judges. The judges do not go up against the district attorney. At least that’s the way it is in Texas.

In my mind, he was guilty of no error - he was chargeable with no exaggeration - he was betrayed by his fancy into no metaphor, who once said that all we see about us, Kings, Lords, and Commons, the whole machinery of the State, all the apparatus of the system, and its varied workings, end in simply bringing twelve good men into a box.

Jurors have found, again and again, and at critical moments, according to what is their sense of the rational and just. If their sense of justice has gone one way, and the case another, they have found "against the evidence," ... the English common law rests upon a bargain between the Law and the people: The jury box is where the people come into the court: The judge watches them and the people watch back. A jury is the place where the bargain is struck. The jury attends in judgment, not only upon the accused, but also upon the justice and the humanity of the Law.

The courtroom is one instance of the fact that while our society may be liberal and democratic in some large and vague sense, its moving parts, its smaller chambers--its classrooms, its workplaces, its corporate boardrooms, its jails, its military barracks--are flagrantly undemocratic, dominated by one commanding person or a tiny elite of power.

The power I exert on the court depends on the power of my arguments, not on my gender.

Jurors want courtroom lawyers to have some compassion and be nice.

[Alan] Dershowitz has also offered to defend Osama bin Laden in court, saying it would be an act of high patriotism. It's kind of too bad there isn't going to be a trial. Having Dershowitz defend him could be Osama's only shot at not being the least popular person in the courtroom.

Criminal court is where bad people are on their best behavior. It's much more dangerous for lawyers and judges in family court, where good people are at their worst.

People are intimidated in court, and I try to make them more comfortable.

You don't know a woman until you've met her in court.

We can speak about the institution, but ultimately the bar is the group that both is in touch with the public on the one hand and understands the judicial institution on the other.

I don't think the trial practice is dead. But it is very ill. There are some days you could throw a hand grenade down the hall of the Harris County Courthouse and not hit anybody.

Courts love the people always, as wolves do the sheep.

Hardly anyone says anything real in the courtroom. Almost everything is decided ahead of time, and the truth is found behind the scenes.

The work of deciding cases goes on every day in hundreds of courts throughout the land. Any judge, one might suppose, would find it easy to describe the process which he had followed a thousand times and more. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

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

You can, if you wish, think of it like the universe: Each case is a sun, and all the judges, lawyers and administrative personnel represent planets revolving around the case in fixed orbit, never getting closer.

In this court the parties changed positions as nimbly as if dancing a quadrille.

The prosecution has to go with the evidence and the facts and tell the story as it happened. The defense has more creative freedom. All you have to do is look for a defense that works. But it doesn't have to be the truth. Sometimes you get lucky and it is, but sometimes you don't, and either way, it doesn't matter.