Legal Distinction Quotes

You know, one wonderful thing that came out of my Enquirer experience is that, in my case, it was ruled tabloids are magazines. Which means they didn't have the protection that a newspaper has.

The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual, crime.

We have secrets, and we have the same secrets that criminals have. Sometimes the only difference between a criminal and a law-abiding citizen is that somebody found out the criminal's secret.

I think corporations are a whole lot different than people. I mean, I don't know a corporation would be put in prison. I do know people would be put in prison.

The gap between being a bad person and being a criminal is often wide.

Legally speaking, there are no such things as 'public rights,' as distinguished from individual rights. Legally speaking, there is no such creature or thing as 'the public.'

Vices are not crimes.

Corporations are not people. That’s why we have different laws governing corporations and governing people.

What is lawful is not always identical to what is right.

An indictment is not a conviction.

Understand that legal and illegal are political, and often arbitrary, categorizations; use and abuse are medical, or clinical, distinctions.

The difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion is the thickness of a prison wall.

There is a difference between jaywalking and grand larceny.

There is a difference between civil partnerships and marriage. That difference does not mean one is better than another.

There is a different spelling between "rights" and "rites" - in other words, civic legislators and ecclesiastical councils have different responsibilities.

But there's a reason that we have different laws for juveniles than we do for adults. And it's because kids are not liable for the things they do in the way that adults are, because we think that kids are different.

For our immigration policy to make sense, it is necessary to make distinctions between those who obey the law, and those who violate it.

Maybe this is my morality coming in again but it was important to me that the actor [ in Notes On A Scandal] was above the age of consent. Although really, what's the difference between 15 and 16? It's the law, yeah, but he's very mature.

Historically, terrorism falls in a category different from crimes that concern a criminal court judge.

Prescription drugs can be even worse than illegal drugs. The only difference is the legality.

It is unthinkable in the twentieth century to fail to distinguish between what constitutes an abominable atrocity that must be prosecuted and what constitutes that "past" which "ought not to be stirred up.

Skipping school isn't a crime. It's an infraction. They're totally different.

Separate is not equal. Civil unions are civil unions. Marriage is marriage. They're different institutions.

We are not accusing you of being illegal, we are accusing you of being immoral.

Vices are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property. Crimes are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of another. Vices are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his own happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice toward others, and no interference with their persons or property. In vices, the very essence of crime—that is, the design to injure the person or property of another—is wanting. It is a maxim of the law that there can be no crime without criminal intent; that is, without the intent to invade the person or property of another. But no one ever practices a vice with any such criminal intent. He practices his vice for his own happiness solely, and not from any malice toward others. Unless this clear distinction between vices and crimes be made and recognized by the laws, there can be on earth no such thing as individual right, liberty, or property, and the corresponding coequal rights of another man to the control of his own person and property