Quotes from Paul Levine

Miguel? The firm messenger?" "He can tote the mail. Now what's so urgent?

You can't trust juries. Take it from me." "You don't believe in the system, that it, Luber?" "Would you want to be judged by people too stupid to get out of jury duty?

If I were a bass, I'd want to be a tarpon," I

The question for the court is, should this boy be in Youth Hall, where he can learn some discipline and maybe get therapy from left-wing, pot-smoking county-payrolled, thumb-sucking shrinks, or should he be on the streets?

I thought of Jack Nicholson telling Shirley MacLaine that a stiff drink "might kill the bug you got up your ass." I thought of John Riggins, the great, wild running back of the Redskins, telling Justice Sandra Day O'Connor at a White House dinner to "loosen up, Sandy baby.

Forty-eight, okay? I don't put my teeth in a jar and I still drive at night.

In his dark suit, white shirt, and rep tie, he looked—and sounded—utterly professional. There was little chance he would make a mistake on direct or get tripped up on cross by a pettifogger, such as my own wily self.

Ubi mel ibi apes.

That's the fallacy. Just because X happens and then Y happens, it doesn't mean that X caused Y.

She had tried running away from her problems but now knew she would have to face them.

He said he didn't need a lawyer because he was innocent." I tried not to grimace, so I just ground my teeth. When you're innocent, you really need a lawyer because of police and prosecution foul-ups. To say nothing of the average citizen's tendency to get scared and confused when being questioned by cops.

If you can't keep a promise to a loved one, you probably aren't going to keep the loved one, either.

The federal government is a ponderous battleship, weighed down by its own armor and slow to change course. But when it chooses to marshal its might against an individual, the government is a lean, mean, conviction machine. Meanwhile, the defendant's lawyer is a loinclothed Roman gladiator protected by a wooden shield, leather shin guards, and prayers to the god Jupiter. The Constitution promises due process but not a fair fight.

I couldn't shake the feeling that Guy was more complicated than a good-ole-boy mango grower and Schein had more secrets than Freud's Wolf Man.

Timeo hominem unius libri. 'I fear the man of one book.' It is attributed to Thomas Aquinas.

Blinky couldn't bench press a breadstick

Omigod," Christine said. "Are you all right, Lateesha?" "Hell no, I broke a nail," she said, examining the pinky of her right hand. "How did you...?" Christine gestured toward the fallen man, who made no effort to get to his feet. "Oh, he's not too much. Didn't Bobby tell you?" "Tell me what?" "I'm a three-time national karate champion.

In Russia, everything is a secret, but nothing is a mystery.

broiling Sunday afternoons in what I still call Joe Robbie Stadium.

Women, I have long believed, are the more evolved of the species and have attained some higher level of being.

Sometimes, Gerald, people break the law so clearly you can hear it crack like a tree branch snapped in two. But other times, like a baker twisting a roll of dough into a pretzel, you only bend the law. You don't tear it. You don't break it. You end up with something better than the ingredients you started with. And the final result is beautiful to behold.

You know the three elements of every prosecution, don't you?" "Sure. Perjury, coercion, and pure dumb luck.

Mortui non mordent

Yogi Berra reportedly said, "It's not the heat, it's the humility.