Legal Rights Quotes

It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished. But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, "whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection," and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizen that would be the end of security whatsoever.

Well, I don't know as I want a lawyer to tell me what I cannot do. I hire him to tell how to do what I want to do.

Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.

The victims of crime have been transformed into a group oppressively burdened by a system designed to protect them.

No man may initiate the use of physical force against others. No man-or group or society or government-has the right to assume the role of a criminal and initiate the use of physical compulsion against any man. Men have the right to use physical force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use. The ethical principle involved is simple and clear-cut: it is the difference between murder and self-defense.

Law enforcement, however, in defeating the criminal, must maintain inviolate the historic liberties of the individual.

Tribal sovereign immunity is an anachronism in today’s world.

Delay in justice is injustice.

To no one will we sell, to no one will we refuse or delay, right or justice.

A lawyer's either a social engineer or he's a parasite on society.

It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.

Our country is wounded and bleeding now if we don't know whether or not habeas corpus exists.

This pro-choice issue is a legal issue that should be decided by the courts.

People are innocent until they are proven guilty, and we will make sure that stays the case.

I was raped by a doctor. Which is, you know, so bittersweet for a Jewish girl.

Laws are always useful to those who possess and vexatious to those who have nothing.

A fair judicial system takes time to work.

There is no fear exception to the 4th Amendment of the Constitution.

There is only one rule of law in our country, which provides rights and security for every citizen.

One of the things about being a law student is that the academic discipline of law is very often removed from the practical reality of law. How to complain, who to complain to, and whether or not you even need to invoke the law is very different in the real world from how it's examined in the lecture theatre.

For the laws are dumb in the midst of arms.

The legal system we have and the rule of law are far more responsible for our traditional liberties than any system of one man one vote. Any country or Government which wants to proceed towards tyranny starts to undermine legal rights and undermine the law.

I believe the freedom to marry is a fundamental right. And I intend to be sure that Virginia is on the right side of history and the right side of the law…. Right now my focus is on Virginians and their constitutional rights.

Property, once recognized, gave rise to the first rules of justice; for, to secure each man his own, it had to be possible for each to have something. Besides, as men began to look forward to the future, and all had something to lose, every one had reason to apprehend that reprisals would follow any injury he might do to another.

No matter how convinced we are that someone is nasty, evil or just plain criminal, if they have not been convicted of any crime and support views that are upheld and defended by many law-abiding citizens, the only way to tackle them is through democratic debate.