Quotes About Law

Freeman was a damn good prosecutor but in my view she didn't play fair. A trial was supposed to be a spirited contesting of facts and evidence. Both sides with equal footing in the law and the rules of the game. But using the rules to hide or withhold facts and evidence was the routine with Freeman. She liked a tiled game. She didn't carry the light. She didn't even see the light.

Michael Connelly

The law could bend. If there were lawyers involved, then there was always a deal to be made.

The truth was, there was nothing in the law that I objected to more than the death penalty. It was not that I had ever had a client executed or even tried such a case. It was simply a belief in the idea that an enlightened society did not kill its own.

The only way to prove I didn't do it is to prove who did," I said. "That's the law of innocence.

Did you ever hear what J. Edgar Hoover said about justice?" she asked. "He probably said a lot, but I don't recall any of it offhand." "He said that justice is incidental to law and order. I think he was right.

He urged the new officers never to break the law to enforce the law. To do their job constitutionally and compassionately at all times.

Michael Connelly

But I also knew that the U.S. Supreme Court had upheld the legality of the police's lying to a suspect if the lie would reasonably be seen as such by an innocent person.

Michael Connelly

most visible police department.

Michael Connelly

jurisprudence. I

fucking prosecutor put a sleeper on the jury." I thought a moment about telling him but decided against it. "At the moment it's better if I don't tell

The law school notions about the virtue of the adversarial system, of the system's checks and balances, of the search for truth, had long since eroded like the faces of statues from other civilizations. The law was not about truth. It was about negotiation, amelioration, manipulation

You are under arrest for murder, attempted murder and general conspiracy to be an asshole. - Harry Bosch

the judge ignore it and drop

Bosch liked short prosecutors. They were always trying to make up for something and usually it was the defendant who ended up paying the price.

the scariest client a lawyer will ever have is an innocent client. Because if you fuck up and he goes to prison, it'll scar you for life.

justice is incidental to law and order.

In a courtroom I can sell ice to Eskimos

play fair, Haller." "It's not a fair game. Did she tell you

Michael Connelly

The law was not about truth. It was about negotiation, amelioration, manipulation. I didn't deal in guilt and innocence, because everybody was guilty. Of something.