Quotes About Justice

It is not my nature, when I see a people borne down by the weight of their shackles - the oppression of tyranny - to make their life more bitter by heaping upon them greater burdens; but rather would I do all in my power to raise the yoke than to add anything that would tend to crush them.

Michael Brown's death and the suffocation of Eric Garner in New York for selling untaxed cigarettes indicate something is wrong with criminal justice in America.

Since the Puffy Combs case in New York, I will not try any more criminal cases.

What position are the citizens here in New York City and New York state? No cash bail for misdemeanors or non-violent felonies. You can rob the local drug store and you get a little appearance ticket and you're right back out on the street.

It is imperative that we set the national example and make it clear that companies seeking to do business in New York City cannot be allowed to treat their workers like second-class citizens.

We fought big time fascists when I was knee high to a grasshopper up in Yorkshire, when I grew up I fought fascists in the West Midlands in the form of the National Front.

Ethics is knowing the difference between what you have a right to do and what is right to do.

You can kill a revolutionary but you can never kill the revolution.

When you see something that is not right, not fair, not just, you have to speak up. You have to say something; you have to do something.

Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.

I cannot lead you into battle. I do not give you laws or administer justice but I can do something else - I can give my heart and my devotion to these old islands and to all the peoples of our brotherhood of nations.

To change criminal justice policy in any meaningful way means to propose changing a very longstanding system. It's not realistic to think you can do it overnight.

You can only avoid responsibility for so long. The catalyst ended up being the law coming down and finally saying, 'You guys suspended judgement and that's fine, because we're not.'

Yes, we become stronger when men and women, young and old, gay and straight, native-born and immigrant fight together to create the kind of country we all know we can become.

We were young, we were foolish, we were arrogant, but we were right.

It's a struggle for every young Black man. You know how it is, only God can judge us.

We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old - and that's the criterion by which I'll be selecting my judges.

I wanted the young African-American girls also on the bus to know that they had a right to be there, because they had paid their fare just like the white passengers.

We beg you to save young America from the blight of race prejudice. Do not bind the children within the narrow circles of your own lives.

The fact is, in the minds of many, Trayvon Martin received the appropriate punishment for a true crime: He was black, male and dared to walk outside. In life, young Trayvon was just a teenager; in death, he has been transformed into a scary, lurking, suspicious, prone-to-violence spook.

As a young prosecutor right out of law school at the Alameda County DA's office that Earl Warren once led, I started my work.

I represented many of these kids as they become young adults in the criminal justice system when I was a public defender. One way of reaching out is by the mind of experimentation.

I understood at a young age that administrations come and go, but laws stay. So I decided to become a lawyer in order to help create a more just and peaceful world, not just in a fleeting moment but in a way that will endure from one generation to the next.

From a very young age I was someone who stood up for others and myself.