Courtroom Sayings Quotes

It's the loneliest feeling in the world-to find yourself standing up when everybody else is sitting down. To have everybody look at you and say, 'What's the matter with him?' I know. I know what it feels like. Walking down an empty street, listening to the sound of your own footsteps. Shutters closed, blinds drawn, doors locked against you. And you aren't sure whether you're walking toward something, or if you're just walking away.

Progress has never been a bargain. You have to pay for it. Sometimes I think there's a man who sits behind a counter and says, "All right, you can have a telephone but you lose privacy and the charm of distance. Madam, you may vote but at a price. You lose the right to retreat behind the powder puff or your petticoat. Mister, you may conquer the air but the birds will lose their wonder and the clouds will smell of gasoline. Henry Drummond, a character in Inherit the Wind

The man who has everything figured out is probably a fool. College examinations notwithstanding, it takes a very smart fella to say "I don't know the answer!

His speech is low and rapid, his manner assured; he is at home in courtroom or waterfront, bishop’s palace or inn yard. He can draft a contract, train a falcon, draw a map, stop a street fight, furnish a house and fix a jury. He will quote you a nice point in the old authors, from Plato to Plautus and back again. He knows new poetry, and can say it in Italian. He works all hours, first up and last to bed. He makes money and he spends it. He will take a bet on anything.

The symptoms of a writer who hasn’t found their way clear of the needs of Self yet are easy to spot. I should say the symptoms are easy for everyone else to spot, that is, and not so easy for the writer themself to see. You’ll see a writer who does not trust the characters to speak and move on their own, but has to puppeteer them; a writer who does not trust the reader to understand what’s written. One who must insert parentheticals in various forms to explain the work to the reader; flashbacks to explain; big black blocks of text on the page to explain; question-and-answer dialog between characters who aren’t in a courtroom; walk-and-talk characters with their mouths full of dialog of what the story is about; too many stage directions that make the script read like a novel…

Intelligence is the ability to solve a problem, to decipher a riddle, to master a set of facts. Judgment is the ability to orbit a problem or a set of facts and see it as it might be seen through other eyes, by observers with different biases, motives, and backgrounds. It is also the ability to take a set of facts and move it in place and time—perhaps to a hearing room or a courtroom, months or years in the future—or to the newsroom of a major publication or the boardroom of a competitor. Intelligence is the ability to collect and report what the documents and witnesses say; judgment is the ability to say what those same facts mean and what effect they will have on other audiences.

Guy tries to buy a gun, but when he returns, he learns he’s failed the background check. ‘Oh well,’ the guy tells himself. ‘It was worth a try.’ The dealer says to the guy, ‘Hold the phone, buddy. Ask a friend, your brother, your sister, anyone you know, to come in, pass the background check, and we’ll sell the guns to them instead of you. What happens to them afterward is none of our business . . .

To begin with, this case should never have come to trial. The state has not produced one iota of medical evidence that the crime Tom Robinson is charged with ever took place... It has relied instead upon the testimony of two witnesses, whose evidence has not only been called into serious question on cross-examination, but has been flatly contradicted by the defendant. Now, there is circumstantial evidence to indicate that Mayella Ewel was beaten - savagely, by someone who led exclusively with his left. And Tom Robinson now sits before you having taken the oath with the only good hand he possesses... his RIGHT. I have nothing but pity in my heart for the chief witness for the State. She is the victim of cruel poverty and ignorance. But my pity does not extend so far as to her putting a man's life at stake, which she has done in an effort to get rid of her own guilt. Now I say "guilt," gentlemen, because it was guilt that motivated her. She's committed no crime - she has merely broken a rigid and time-honored code of our society, a code so severe that whoever breaks it is hounded from our midst as unfit to live with. She must destroy the evidence of her offense. But what was the evidence of her offense? Tom Robinson, a human being. She must put Tom Robinson away from her. Tom Robinson was to her a daily reminder of what she did. Now, what did she do? She tempted a *****. She was white, and she tempted a *****. She did something that, in our society, is unspeakable. She kissed a black man. Not an old uncle, but a strong, young ***** man. No code mattered to her before she broke it, but it came crashing down on her afterwards. The witnesses for the State, with the exception of the sheriff of Maycomb County have presented themselves to you gentlemen, to this court in the cynical confidence that their testimony would not be doubted, confident that you gentlemen would go along with them on the assumption... the evil assumption that all Negroes lie, all Negroes are basically immoral beings, all ***** men are not to be trusted around our women. An assumption that one associates with minds of their caliber, and which is, in itself, gentlemen, a lie, which I do not need to point out to you. And so, a quiet, humble, respectable *****, who has had the unmitigated TEMERITY to feel sorry for a white woman, has had to put his word against TWO white people's! The defendant is not guilty - but somebody in this courtroom is. Now, gentlemen, in this country, our courts are the great levelers. In our courts, all men are created equal. I'm no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and of our jury system - that's no ideal to me. That is a living, working reality! Now I am confident that you gentlemen will review, without passion, the evidence that you have heard, come to a decision and restore this man to his family. In the name of GOD, do your duty. In the name of God, believe... Tom Robinson

The courtroom oath--"to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth"--is applicable only to witnesses. Defense attorneys, prosecutors, and judges don't take this oath--they couldn't! Indeed, it is fair to say the American justice system is built on the foundation of not telling the whole truth. It is the job of the defense attorney--especially when representing the guilty--to prevent, by all lawful means, the "whole truth" from coming out.

Conventional wisdom says if a jury is going to no-cause the plaintiff—award no damages—the verdict will be swift. Similar logic applies to criminal trials where juries will, within hours, convict people, but take days to acquit. In civil cases, this rule is more than courtroom legend . . . A defense verdict requires one finding—the defendant was not responsible . . . A plaintiff verdict requires a finding of liability and evaluation of damages, something not needed in a defense verdict. Thus, by sheer evidence evaluation, a jury has more work to do when rendering a verdict in favor of the plaintiff.

Do you realize that it is only in the gospel of Jesus Christ that you get the verdict before the performance? The atheist might say that they get their self-image from being a good person. They are a good person and they hope that eventually they will get a verdict that confirms that they are a good person. Performance leads to the verdict. For the Buddhist too, performance leads to the verdict. If you are a Muslim, performance leads to the verdict. All this means that every day, you are in the courtroom, every day you are on trial. That is the problem. But Paul is saying that in Christianity, the verdict leads to performance.

When do I get accused of murdering you? Because I won’t even try to deny it. I’ll walk into the courtroom and say you’re welcome.” “You would be very lonely without me.” “I would definitely have to buy less Tylenol.

Dershowitz may have felt justified in misleading the jury because, in his words, “the courtroom oath—‘to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth’—is applicable only to witnesses. Defense attorneys, prosecutors, and judges don’t take this oath…indeed, it is fair to say the American justice system is built on a foundation of not telling the whole truth.

Do I feel remorse for what I have done? Yes, I do, but if I am honest, I feel relief, more than remorse. I have not been bullied since the shootings, even in prison. Can you imagine? Prison provides me a safer environment than my community school ever did. How is this possible? What does it say about those in charge of the students? 

That’s in the classroom and in the courtroom,” Harold said. “Not in life. You see, Jude, in life, sometimes nice things happen to good people. You don’t need to worry—they don’t happen as often as they should. But when they do, it’s up to the good people to just say ‘thank you,’ and move on, and maybe consider that the person who’s doing the nice thing gets a bang out of it as well, and really isn’t in the mood to hear all the reasons that the person for whom he’s done the nice thing doesn’t think he deserves it or isn’t worthy of it.

The world has two kinds of people,” Judge Sullivan used to say. “Those who are inclined to believe, and those who aren’t. In my courtroom, we value belief. Belief in all things.” He

My narcissism could have turned my eulogy Into Law & Order courtroom testimony. I could've said, "I felt safe almost half the time With Mom. She protected me against cruelty Three days a week.

To our children, specifically, I say: In America, you are never alone. Your family, your neighbors, your fellow citizens all over these United States are with you, love you, and will do whatever is necessary to comfort and protect you. Turn to your family, teachers, clergymen, or police officers for help. Answer cruelty and hate with love and kindness. Work to create a culture where the sanctity of life is sacrosanct, and the blessings of friendships and families will help to begin the healing process.

Being fearless, unafraid to take unpopular cases, fighting like hell for the little people who have no one to protect them. When you get the reputation as a lawyer who’ll take on anybody and anything—the government, the corporations, the power structure—then you’ll be in demand. You have to reach a level of confidence, Jake, where you walk into a courtroom thoroughly unintimidated by any judge, any prosecutor, any big-firm defense lawyer, and completely oblivious to what people might say about you.

I can’t believe you would represent a killer like that Jake. I thought you were one of us. xxx ‘Gotta have a lawyer, Helen. You can’t put the boy in the gas chamber if he doesn’t have a lawyer. Surely, you understand.’ xxx ‘...I can’t imagine doing that for a living, representing killers and child rapists and such.’ ‘How often do you read the Constitution?’ ‘...the Constitution, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, says that a person accused of a serious crime must have a lawyer. And that’s the law of the land.

In history, in a movie, in a book, you can always tell who the heroes are; they're the ones rushing into a burning building, giving crucial testimony in the courtroom, refusing to step to the back of the bus. They're the ones who act the way you hope you would, if the moment came to you. But the movies and the history books never tell you how they felt, those heroes, if they were angry or uncertain or afraid, if they had to think a long time before they did the right thing, if they even knew what the right thing was or just made a headlong guess, just leaped and hoped they landed instead of falling. They never tell you what it's like to stand on the brink, wishing you were somewhere--or someone--else, wishing the choice had never come your way and you could just go back to your safe, ordinary, everyday life. Because you know what else the books never say? Nobody, hero or not, really wants to rush into a fire. Because fire burns.

Finally, Galileo did not say “And yet it does move” as he left the courtroom. There is no contemporary record of his saying this; the claim first appears in a book about Galileo written over a century later.1

Bailey, a former prosecutor, attacked her credibility scattershot, an approach he would use throughout the trial, particularly with female witnesses. ... He accused her, that is--without coming out and saying it--of being a certain kind of woman: conceited, disingenuous, and dissatisfied. The universal misogynist caricature. I'd never gone in for academic gender theories, but Bailey's cross-examination strategy--with Farrar and other women to come--convinced me that the culture of criminal justice has a fundamentally masculine tilt. Repeatedly, in a manner that I suspected was typical in modern courtrooms, he portrayed the female mind as intrinsically unreliable, ruled by emotion, immune to logic, prone to pettiness, swayed by lust, and corrupted by vanity. It rarely spoke plainly. It was seldom candid. It was composed of layers of hidden agendas. It put up a front, behind which was another front. It either aimed to please or to conceal, which were often the same thing. The only way to get the truth from it was to push and prod until it snapped. Make it angry. Make it cry.

What’s football?” he asked. “It’s chess. Tackle chess. And what’s the quarterback? He’s the king. Take him out, you win the game. So that was our philosophy. We’re going to hit that quarterback ten times. We do that, he’s gone. I hit him late? Fine. Penalize me. But it’s like in those courtroom movies, when the lawyer says the wrong thing and the judge tells the jury to disregard it, but you can’t unhear and the quarterback can’t be unhit.

To avoid being manhandled, as soon as the judge said, “Remove the defendant from the courtroom,” i would say, “The defendant will remove herself.” Most of the time it worked, but one day the marshals were so gung ho they jumped on me and started brutalizing me in open kourt.

By the way, I only know the word ignominy because of a remark in court from a highly pompous local judge,—and former thespian—who said to a lout in his courtroom: “I have never seen such ignominy, calumny, and perfidy in all my days. Be gone from my sight.” The ruffian looked around and said, “Wha’d he say?

I did not speak. I have found in any Q&A, in court, in witness interviews, wherever, often the best thing you can do is wait, say nothing. The witness will want to fill the awkward silence. He will feel a vague compassion to keep talking, to prove he is not holding back, to prove he is smart and in the know, to earn your trust.

I’d seen what evil could do. Evil never gave itself for anyone. It takes what it doesn’t own. Holds your head under the water. Rips your head off your neck and dangles it from the city wall. Evil dominates. Controls. Eradicates. Evil is a sniveling punk, and if you let it inside you then you spew hatred, which is just another name for the poison we drink hoping it’ll hurt someone else.” I glanced around the courtroom at Allie, Catalina, Gabby, Suzy, and finally at the cameras. “But not love. Love rushes in where others won’t. Where the bullets are flying. It stands between. Pours out. Empties itself. It scours the wasteland, returns the pieces that were lost, and it never counts the cost.” Despite a packed house, the room was silent. After a minute, I continued, “Love walks into hell, where I sit in chains, where the verdict is guilty, grabs you by the heart, and says to the warden, ‘Me for him.’” I turned and glanced at my brother. “Sir, we live in an angry, evil world. Where stuff doesn’t always make sense. Where hope seems like something we did when we were kids and the love we cling to slips through our fingers like cold water, but”—I tapped my chest—“nothing that happens here today changes the fact that love heals the shattered places.” I shook my head once. “It’s the only thing that can—” The faces in the courtroom held steady on mine. “It’s the only thing worth fighting for,” I finished, then turned to Bobby. I’d like to think my eyes smiled. “So, no, sir, I don’t hate my brother.

When I left the courtroom that June day, after reading my statement, courage had been the furthest thing form my mind. Now I understood that in this life I've been given, I had done something good, created power from pain, provided solace while remaining honest about the hardships victims face. In turn, they showed me who I was. Now it was just a matter of figuring out how to say thank you.

Shame lives in the community, though the community can feel like a courtroom. It says, “You don’t belong—you are unacceptable, unclean, and disgraced” because “You are wrong, you have sinned” (guilt), or “Wrong has been done to you” or “You are associated with those who are disgraced or outcast.” The shamed person feels worthless, expects rejection, and needs cleansing, fellowship, love, and acceptance.

Over the dinner, he tried to thank Harold again, but every time he tried, Harold stopped him with increasing impatience. "Has anyone ever told you that sometimes you just need to accept things, Jude?" he finally asked. "You said to never just accept anything," he reminded Harold. "That's in the classroom and in the courtroom," Harold said. "Not in life. You see Jude, in life, sometimes nice things happen to good people. You don't need to worry- they don't happen as often as they should. But when they do, it's up to the good people to just say 'thank you,' and move on, and maybe consider that the person who's doing the nice thing gets a bang out of it as well, and really isn't in the mood to hear all the reasons that the person for whom he's done the nice thing doesn't think he deserves it or isn't worthy of it." p113

Say five Our Fathers and five Hail Marys as a penance” still perpetuated a de facto notion of a juridical exchange instead of any deep experience of healing forgiveness or unearned grace. You cannot deal with spiritual things in a courtroom manner. It does not achieve its purpose; it does not work at a deep level. We forgot our own unique job description as people of the Gospel and imitated courts of law instead.

In courtrooms all across this city, Maya had seen people get verdicts they’d wanted, and she’d seen just as many get ones they didn’t. But the verdicts had nothing to do with truth. No verdict ever changed a person’s opinion. Juries weren’t gods. The people who went into those courtrooms looking for divine revelation came out bearing the fruits of bureaucratic negotiation. Maya wanted to tell Lou that this need for vindication had become the mire of their whole petty country. Every day, they woke up fervently hoping for the headline that would prove, definitively, that their guys were the virtuous ones and the other guys were the absolute worst. But news of that certainty would forever elude them. Every new revelation that seemed to damn the people with whom they disagreed would be followed by a new rationalization. For every failed prediction, there would come a mitigating circumstance. They would double down on their most weakly held convictions because the alternative felt unbearable, and the bums across the aisle would follow suit. She wanted to say that the only thing worse than being wrong was having a bottomless need to prove that you never were. But she didn’t tell Lou any of that. Instead, Maya told Lou what he wanted to hear. She did it because she was the last person on earth who should be instructing Lou Silver on how to live out his days. And she did it because he’d asked her an honest question, and he deserved to hear from her an honest answer. “Mr. Silver,” she said, running her fingers through her hair, “I’m not sure of much of anything anymore.

You've seen him, I know. He's the guy who stands there, or sits in a scene, and never says anything. If you need five tough guys to sit in a car waiting to blast somebody coming out of a building, he's one of the five guys in the car. If some criminals are waiting to be tried by a judge in a courtroom scene, he's waiting to be tried and he always looks guilty. He stands by elevators, he eats lunch in restaurants. In westerns, he is the guy at the end of the bar drinking rye. Once in a while he carries the rope at a lynching.

Maybe that’s too big of a question. Let’s back up. May Ling has been with you for fourteen months now? What have you done, in the time she’s been with you, to connect her to her Chinese culture?” “Well.” Another pause, a very long one this time. Mr. Richardson willed Mrs. McCullough to say something, anything. “Pearl of the Orient is one of our very favorite restaurants. We try to take her there once a month. I think it’s good for her to hear some Chinese, to get it into her ears. To grow up feeling this is natural. And of course I’m sure she’ll love the food once she’s older.” Yawning silence in the courtroom. Mrs. McCullough felt the need to fill it. “Perhaps we could take a Chinese cooking class at the rec center and learn together. When she’s older.” Ed Lim said nothing, and Mrs. McCullough prattled nervously on. “We try to be very sensitive to these issues wherever we can.” Inspiration arrived. “Like for her first birthday, we wanted to get her a teddy bear. One she could keep as an heirloom. There was a brown bear, a polar bear, and a panda, and we thought about it and decided on the panda. We thought perhaps she’d feel more of a connection to it.

You said to never just accept anything,” he reminded Harold. “That’s in the classroom and in the courtroom,” Harold said. “Not in life. You see, Jude, in life, sometimes nice things happen to good people. You don’t need to worry—they don’t happen as often as they should. But when they do, it’s up to the good people to just say ‘thank you,’ and move on, and maybe consider that the person who’s doing the nice thing gets a bang out of it as well, and really isn’t in the mood to hear all the reasons that the person for whom he’s done the nice thing doesn’t think he deserves it or isn’t worthy of it.

I wanted to climb onto my stand with a large red paintbrush, to paint NO across the back wall of the courtroom in long red strokes, each letter twenty feet tall. I wanted a banner to unfurl from the ceiling releasing crimson balloons. I want everyone’s shirts lifted, Ns and Os painted across hairy stomachs, NONONONONO, doing the wave. I wanted to say, Ask me again. Ask me a million times and that will always be my answer. No is the beginning and end of this story. I may not know how many yards away from the house I peed, or what I’d eaten earlier on that January day. But I will always know this answer. I was finally answering the question he’d never bothered to ask.

The word 'inauthentic' is used by Heidegger to describe the ostrich-like attitude of the man who seeks to escape from his inescapable self-responsibility by becoming an anonymous member of a crowd. This is the normal attitude of nearly everybody. To be 'authentic' a man must be constantly and deliberately aware of his total responsibility for what he is. For example, a judge may disclaim personal responsibility for sentencing people to punishment. He will say that as a judge it is his duty to punish. In other words it is as an anonymous representative of the Judiciary that he punishes, and it is the Judiciary that must take the responsibility. This man is inauthentic. If he wishes to be authentic he must think to himself, whenever he sits on the Bench or draws his salary, 'Why do I punish? Because, as a judge, it is my duty to punish. Why am I a judge? Is it perhaps my duty to be a judge? No. I am a judge because I myself choose to be a judge. I choose to be one who punishes in the name of the Law. Can I, if I really wish, choose not to be a judge? Yes, I am absolutely free at any moment to stop being a judge, if I so choose. If this is so, when a guilty man comes up before me for sentence, do I have any alternative but to punish him? Yes, I can get up, walk out of the courtroom, and resign my job. Then if, instead, I punish him, am I responsible? I am totally responsible.

Enquirer," Neverfell said slowly, "do you really think I would have walked into this court if I didn’t have a way of getting out again?" "What? What way?" "I don’t know." Neverfell gave Enquirer Treble an enormous smile, as bright and mad as a sun souffé. "Do you like surprises, Enquirer? I do. Just as well, really." It is fair to say that what happened after that was a surprise to everybody in the courtroom, including Neverfell. Somewhere high above in the shadowy, stalagmite-fanged ceiling, a trapdoor flipped open, revealing a darkened hatch. From this darkness a coil of wire whispered down, unravelling and unravelling as it fell, until the bottom end brushed the dais on which Neverfell stood. Then with a singing, metallic whine, a stocky figure in a gleaming metal suit and goggled mask dropped out of the trap and slid down the wire, to land with a jolt beside Neverfell. "Seize . . ." began Treble. A metal-scaled arm was thrown round Neverfell’s middle. An armoured hand flicked two belt levers. ". . . that . . ." With a lurch, Neverfell was dragged aloft as the armoured figure whizzed back up the wire, carrying her with it, the whine of the mechanism rising to a screech. The dais dropped away, and she was staring down at a receding sea of frozen, upturned faces. ". . . girl!" finished the Enquirer in a deafening yell as both soaring figures disappeared upward through the hatch. The court vanished from Neverfell’s view as the trapdoor flapped shut.

My client comes into the courtroom with baggage because we do not have the presumption of innocence in America. Truth is, we have the assumption of guilt, and it starts the minute somebody is arrested. Nobody says “an innocent person was arrested today on suspicion of murder.” What happens is the Chief of Police, the District Attorney, and everybody else who is looking to get on television has a press conference and says “We have solved a crime. We have arrested and have in custody the person who did it. He will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” And then a lawyer comes along at some point and either says “no comment” or “my client’s not guilty,” but nobody believes, so my job as a lawyer is to try to level the playing field.

Do you realize that it is only in the gospel of Jesus Christ that you get the verdict before the performance? The atheist might say that they get their self-image from being a good person. They are a good person and they hope that eventually they will get a verdict that confirms that they are a good person. Performance leads to the verdict. For the Buddhist too, performance leads to the verdict. If you are a Muslim, performance leads to the verdict. All this means that every day, you are in the courtroom, every day you are on trial. That is the problem. But Paul is saying that in Christianity, the verdict leads to performance. It is not the performance that leads to the verdict. In Christianity, the moment we believe, God says ‘This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.

turned around and saw that Mrs. Williams was still standing. The courtroom got very quiet. All eyes were on her. I tried to gesture to her that she should sit, but then she leaned her head back and shouted, “I’m here!” People chuckled nervously as she took her seat, but when she looked at me, I saw tears in her eyes. In that moment, I felt something peculiar, a deep sense of recognition. I smiled now, because I knew she was saying to the room, “I may be old, I may be poor, I may be black, but I’m here. I’m here because I’ve got this vision of justice that compels me to be a witness. I’m here because I’m supposed to be here. I’m here because you can’t keep me away.” I smiled at Mrs. Williams while she sat proudly. For the first time since I started working on the case, everything we were struggling to achieve finally seemed to make sense.

Good leaders constantly worry about their limited ability to see. To rise above those limitations, good leaders exercise judgment, which is a different thing from intelligence. Intelligence is the ability to solve a problem, to decipher a riddle, to master a set of facts. Judgment is the ability to orbit a problem or a set of facts and see it as it might be seen through other eyes, by observers with different biases, motives, and backgrounds. It is also the ability to take a set of facts and move it in place and time—perhaps to a hearing room or a courtroom, months or years in the future—or to the newsroom of a major publication or the boardroom of a competitor. Intelligence is the ability to collect and report what the documents and witnesses say; judgment is the ability to say what those same facts mean and what effect they will have on other audiences.

Gentlemen,' he was saying, 'I shall be brief, but I would like to use my remaining time with you to remind you that this case is not a difficult one, it requires no minute sifting of complicated facts, but it does require you to be sure beyond a reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the defendant. To begin with, this case should never have come to trial. This case is as simple as black and white. 'The state has not produced one iota of medical evidence to the effect that the crime Tom Robinson is charged with ever took place. It has relied instead upon the testimony of two witnesses whose evidence has not only been called into serious question on cross-examination, but has been flatly contradicted by the defendant. The defendant is not guilty, but somebody in this court-room is. 'I have nothing but pity in my heart for the chief witness for the state, but my pity does not extend so far as to her putting a man’s life at stake, which she has done in an effort to get rid of her own guilt.

The older a woman got, the more diligent she had to become about not burdening men with the gory details of her past, lest she scare them off. That was the name of the game: Don’t Scare the Men. Those who encouraged you to indulge in your impulse to share, largely did so to expedite a bus. Like I felt the wind of the bus. I could even see a couple of the passengers, all shaken by a potential suicide. And out of nowhere, the guy rushes over, yanks me toward him, and escorts me out of the street.” “The birthday boy?” “No, different guy. You all start to look the same after a while, you know that? Anyway, we were both so high on adrenaline, we couldn’t stop laughing the whole night. Then he asked me out. Now one of our jokes is about that time I flung myself into traffic to avoid him.” “You were in shock.” “No, I wasn’t.” “Why isn’t the joke that he saved your life?” “I don’t know, Amos,” I said, folding my fingers together. “Maybe we’re both waiting for the day I turn around and say, ‘That’s right, asshole, I did fling myself into traffic to avoid you.’ I’m joking.” “Are you?” “Am I?” I mimicked him. “Should the day come when you manage to face-plant yourself into a relationship, you’ll find there are certain fragile truths every couple has. Sometimes I’m uncomfortable with the power, knowing I could break us up if I wanted. Other times, I want to blow it up just because it’s there. But then the feeling passes.” “That’s bleak.” “To you, it is. But I’m not like you. I don’t need to escape every room I’m in.” “But you are like me. You think you want monogamy, but you probably don’t if you dated me.” “You’re faulting me for liking you now?” “All I’m saying is you can’t just will yourself into being satisfied with this guy.” “Watch me,” I said, trying to burn a hole in his face. “If it were me, the party would have been our first date and it never would have ended.” “Oh, yes it would have,” I said, laughing. “The date would have lasted one week, but the whole relationship would have lasted one month.” “Yeah,” he said, “you’re right.” “I know I’m right.” “It wouldn’t have lasted.” “This is what I’m saying.” “Because if I were this dude, I would have left you by now.” Before I could say anything, Amos excused himself to pee. On the bathroom door was a black and gold sticker in the shape of a man. I felt a rage rise up all the way to my eyeballs, thinking of how naturally Amos associated himself with that sticker, thinking of him aligning himself with every powerful, brilliant, thoughtful man who has gone through that door as well as every stupid, entitled, and cruel one, effortlessly merging with a class of people for whom the world was built. I took my phone out, opening the virtual cuckoo clocks, trying to be somewhere else. I was confronted with a slideshow of a female friend’s dead houseplants, meant to symbolize inadequacy within reason. Amos didn’t have a clue what it was like to be a woman in New York, unsure if she’s with the right person. Even if I did want to up and leave Boots, dating was not a taste I’d acquired. The older a woman got, the more diligent she had to become about not burdening men with the gory details of her past, lest she scare them off. That was the name of the game: Don’t Scare the Men. Those who encouraged you to indulge in your impulse to share, largely did so to expedite a decision. They knew they were on trial too, but our courtrooms had more lenient judges.

Christina wipes at her eyes, smearing her mascara. “I don’t know if I ever told you this story,” she says. “It’s about your mother. It was a long time ago, when I was in college. I was driving back home from Vassar for Thanksgiving break, and there was a hitchhiker on the side of the road on the Taconic Parkway. He was a Black man, and he had a bum leg. He was literally walking on crutches. So I pulled over and asked if he needed a ride. I took him all the way to Penn Station, so that he could get on a train to visit his family in D.C.” She folds her coat more tightly around her. “When I got home, and Lou came into my room to help me unpack, I told her what I’d done. I thought she’d be proud of me, being a Good Samaritan and all. Instead, she got so angry, Ruth! I swear, I’d never seen her like that. She grabbed my arms and shook me; she couldn’t even speak at first. Don’t you ever, ever do that again, she told me, and I was so shocked I promised I wouldn’t.” Christina looks at me. “Today I sat in that courtroom and I listened to that detective talk about how he busted in your door in the middle of the night and pushed you down and held back Edison and I kept hearing Lou’s voice in my head, after I told her about the Black hitchhiker. I knew your mama reacted that way to me because she was scared. But all these years, I thought she was trying to keep me safe. Now, I know she was trying to keep him safe.

Grayson, I’m going to dance on the day that you swing.” “If he swings, I swing with him.” Joss rose to his feet. Gray drilled his brother with a glare. “Joss, no.” Sit down, damn you. Think of our sister. Think of your son. “I’m the captain of the Aphrodite.” Joss’s voice rang through the courtroom. “I’m responsible for the actions of her passengers and crew. If my brother is a pirate, then I’m a pirate, too.” Gray’s heart sank. They would both die now, he and his idiot of a brother. Joss walked to the center of the courtroom, the brass buttons of his captain’s coat gleaming as he strode through a shaft of sunlight. “But I demand a full trial. I will be heard, and evidence will be examined. Logbooks, the condition of the ships, the statements of my crew. If you mean to hang my brother, you’ll have to find cause to hang me.” Fitzhugh’s eyebrows rose to his wig. “Gladly.” “And me.” Gray groaned at the sound of that voice. He didn’t even have to look to know that Davy Linnet was on his feet. Brave, stupid fool of a boy. “If Gray’s a pirate, I’m a pirate, too,” Davy said. “I helped him aim and fire that cannon, that’s God’s truth. If you hang him, you have to hang me.” Another chair scraped the floorboards as its occupant rose to his feet. “And me.” Oh God. O’Shea now? “I boarded the Kestrel. I took control of her helm and helped bind that piece of shite.” The Irishman jutted his chin at Mallory. “Suppose that makes me a pirate, too.” “Very good.” Fitzhugh’s eyes lit with glee. “Anyone else?” Over by the window, Levi stood. His shadow blanketed most of the room. “Me,” he said. “Now, Levi?” Gray pulled at his hair. “Seven years in my employ, you don’t say a single goddamned word, and you decide to speak now?” Bloody hell, now they were all on their feet. Pumping fists, cursing Mallory, defending Gray, arguing over which one of them deserved the distinction of most bloodthirsty pirate. It would have been a heartwarming display of loyalty, if they weren’t all going to die.

How do you build peaks? You create a positive moment with elements of elevation, insight, pride, and/ or connection. We’ll explore those final three elements later, but for now, let’s focus on elevation. To elevate a moment, do three things: First, boost sensory appeal. Second, raise the stakes. Third, break the script. (Breaking the script means to violate expectations about an experience—the next chapter is devoted to the concept.) Moments of elevation need not have all three elements but most have at least two. Boosting sensory appeal is about “turning up the volume” on reality. Things look better or taste better or sound better or feel better than they usually do. Weddings have flowers and food and music and dancing. (And they need not be superexpensive—see the footnote for more.IV) The Popsicle Hotline offers sweet treats delivered on silver trays by white-gloved waiters. The Trial of Human Nature is conducted in a real courtroom. It’s amazing how many times people actually wear different clothes to peak events: graduation robes and wedding dresses and home-team colors. At Hillsdale High, the lawyers wore suits and the witnesses came in costume. A peak means something special is happening; it should look different. To raise the stakes is to add an element of productive pressure: a competition, a game, a performance, a deadline, a public commitment. Consider the pregame jitters at a basketball game, or the sweaty-hands thrill of taking the stage at Signing Day, or the pressure of the oral defense at Hillsdale High’s Senior Exhibition. Remember how the teacher Susan Bedford said that, in designing the Trial, she and Greg Jouriles were deliberately trying to “up the ante” for their students. They made their students conduct the Trial in front of a jury that included the principal and varsity quarterback. That’s pressure. One simple diagnostic to gauge whether you’ve transcended the ordinary is if people feel the need to pull out their cameras. If they take pictures, it must be a special occasion. (Not counting the selfie addict, who thinks his face is a special occasion.) Our instinct to capture a moment says: I want to remember this. That’s a moment of elevation.

Democracy, the apple of the eye of modern western society, flies the flag of equality, tolerance, and the right of its weaker members to defense and protection. The flag bearers for children's rights adhere to these same values. But should democracy bring about the invalidation of parental authority? Does democracy mean total freedom for children? Is it possible that in the name of democracy, parents are no longer allowed to say no to their children or to punish them? The belief that punishment is harmful to children has long been a part of our culture. It affects each and every one of us and penetrates our awareness via the movies we see and the books we read. It is a concept that has become a kingpin of modern society and helps form the media's attitudes toward parenting, as well as influencing legislation and courtroom decisions. In recent years, the children's rights movement has enjoyed enormous momentum and among the current generation, this movement has become pivotal and is stronger than ever before. Educational systems are embracing psychological concepts in which stern approaches and firm discipline during childhood are said to create emotional problems in adulthood, and liberal concepts have become the order of the day. To prevent parents from abusing their children, the public is constantly being bombarded by messages of clemency and boundless consideration; effectively, children should be forgiven, parents should be understanding, and punishment should be avoided. Out of a desire to protect children from all hardship and unpleasantness, parental authority has become enfeebled and boundaries have been blurred. Nonetheless, at the same time society has seen a worrying rise in violence, from domestic violence to violence at school and on the streets. Sweden, a pioneer in enacting legislation that limits parental authority, is now experiencing a dramatic rise in child and youth violence. The country's lawyers and academics, who have established a committee for human rights, are now protesting that while Swedish children are protected against light physical punishment from their parents (e.g., being spanked on the bottom), they are exposed to much more serious violence from their peers. The committee's position is supported by statistics that indicate a dramatic rise in attacks on children and youths by their peers over the years since the law went into effect (9-1). Is it conceivable, therefore, that a connection exists between legislation that forbids across-the-board physical punishment and a rise in youth violence? We believe so! In Israel, where physical punishment has been forbidden since 2000 (9-2), there has also been a steady and sharp rise in youth violence, which bears an obvious connection to reduced parental authority. Children and adults are subjected to vicious beatings and even murder at the hands of violent youths, while parents, who should by nature be responsible for setting boundaries for their children, are denied the right to do so properly, as they are weakened by the authority of the law. Parents are constantly under suspicion, and the fear that they may act in a punitive manner toward their wayward children has paralyzed them and led to the almost complete transfer of their power into the hands of law-enforcement authorities. Is this what we had hoped for? Are the indifferent and hesitant law-enforcement authorities a suitable substitute for concerned and caring parents? We are well aware of the fact that law-enforcement authorities are not always able to effectively do their jobs, which, in turn, leads to the crumbling of society.

You know," he said, 'for what it's worth, the justice system is supposed to be this purveyor of right and wrong, good and had. But sometimes, I think it gets it wrong almost as much as it gets it right. I've had to learn that, too, and it's hard to accept. What do you do when the things that are supposed to protect you, fail you like that?? 'I was so naïve,' Pip said. 'I practically handed Max Hastings to them, after everything came out last year. And I truly believed it was some kind of victory, that the bad would be punished. Because it was the truth, and the truth was the most important thing to me. It's all I believed in, all I cared about: finding the truth, no matter the cost. And the truth was that Max was guilty and he would face justice. But justice doesn't exist, and the truth doesn't matter, not in the real world, and now they've just handed him right back. 'Oh, justice exists,' Charlie said, looking up at the rain. 'Maybe not the kind that happens in police stations and courtrooms, but it does exist. And when you really think about it, those words - good and bad, right and wrong- they don't really matter in the real world. Who gets to decide what they mean: those people who just got it wrong and let Max walk free? No,' he shook his head. 'I think we all get to decide what good and bad and right and wrong mean to us, not what we're told to accept. You did nothing wrong. Don't beat yourself up for other people's mistakes.' She turned to him, her stomach clenching. But that doesn't matter now. Max has won.' 'He only wins if you let him.' 'What can I do about it?' she asked. 'From listening to your podcast, sounds to me like there's not much you can't do.' 'I haven't found Jamie.' She picked at her nails. "And now people think he's not really missing, that I made it all up. That I'm a liar and I'm bad and -' 'Do you care?' Charlie asked. 'Do you care what people think, if you know you're right?' She paused, her answer sliding back down her throat. Why did she care? She was about to say she didn't care at all, but hadn't that been the feeling in the pit of her stomach all along? The pit that had been growing these last six months. Guilt about what she did last time, about her dog dying, about not being good, about putting her family in danger, and every day reading the disappointment in her mum's eyes. Feeling bad about the secrets she was keeping to protect Cara and Naomi. She was a liar, that part was true. And worse, to make herself feel better about it all, she'd said it wasn't really her and she'd never be that person again. That she was different now... good. That she'd almost lost herself last time and it wouldn't happen again. But that wasn't it, was it? She hadn't almost lost herself, maybe she'd actually been meeting herself for the very first time. And she was tired of feeling guilty about it. Tired of feeling shame about who she was. She bet Max Hastings had never felt ashamed a day in his life. 'You're right,' she said. And as she straightened up, untwisted, she realized that the pit in her stomach, the one that had been swallowing her from inside out, it was starting to go, Filling in until it was hardly there at all. "Maybe I don't have to be good, or other people's versions of good. And maybe I don't have to be likeable.' She turned to him, her movements quick and light despite her water-heavy clothes. "Fuck likeable You know who's likeable? People like Max Hastings who walk into a courtroom with fake glasses and charm their way out. I don't want to be like that." 'So don't, Charlie said. 'And don't give up because of him. Someone's life might depend on you. And I know you can find him, find Jamie. He turned a smile to her. "Other people might

You know," he said, 'for what it's worth, the justice system is supposed to be this purveyor of right and wrong, good and had. But sometimes, I think it gets it wrong almost as much as it gets it right. I've had to learn that, too, and it's hard to accept. What do you do when the things that are supposed to protect you, fail you like that?? 'I was so naïve,' Pip said. 'I practically handed Max Hastings to them, after everything came out last year. And I truly believed it was some kind of victory, that the bad would be punished. Because it was the truth, and the truth was the most important thing to me. It's all I believed in, all I cared about: finding the truth, no matter the cost. And the truth was that Max was guilty and he would face justice. But justice doesn't exist, and the truth doesn't matter, not in the real world, and now they've just handed him right back. 'Oh, justice exists,' Charlie said, looking up at the rain. 'Maybe not the kind that happens in police stations and courtrooms, but it does exist. And when you really think about it, those words - good and bad, right and wrong- they don't really matter in the real world. Who gets to decide what they mean: those people who just got it wrong and let Max walk free? No,' he shook his head. 'I think we all get to decide what good and bad and right and wrong mean to us, not what we're told to accept. You did nothing wrong. Don't beat yourself up for other people's mistakes.' She turned to him, her stomach clenching. But that doesn't matter now. Max has won.' 'He only wins if you let him.' 'What can I do about it?' she asked. 'From listening to your podcast, sounds to me like there's not much you can't do.' 'I haven't found Jamie.' She picked at her nails. "And now people think he's not really missing, that I made it all up. That I'm a liar and I'm bad and -' 'Do you care?' Charlie asked. 'Do you care what people think, if you know you're right?' She paused, her answer sliding back down her throat. Why did she care? She was about to say she didn't care at all, but hadn't that been the feeling in the pit of her stomach all along? The pit that had been growing these last six months. Guilt about what she did last time, about her dog dying, about not being good, about putting her family in danger, and every day reading the disappointment in her mum's eyes. Feeling bad about the secrets she was keeping to protect Cara and Naomi. She was a liar, that part was true. And worse, to make herself feel better about it all, she'd said it wasn't really her and she'd never be that person again. That she was different now... good. That she'd almost lost herself last time and it wouldn't happen again. But that wasn't it, was it? She hadn't almost lost herself, maybe she'd actually been meeting herself for the very first time. And she was tired of feeling guilty about it. Tired of feeling shame about who she was. She bet Max Hastings had never felt ashamed a day in his life. 'You're right,' she said. And as she straightened up, untwisted, she realized that the pit in her stomach, the one that had been swallowing her from inside out, it was starting to go, Filling in until it was hardly there at all. "Maybe I don't have to be good, or other people's versions of good. And maybe I don't have to be likeable.' She turned to him, her movements quick and light despite her water-heavy clothes. "Fuck likeable You know who's likeable? People like Max Hastings who walk into a courtroom with fake glasses and charm their way out. I don't want to be like that." 'So don't, Charlie said. 'And don't give up because of him. Someone's life might depend on you. And I know you can find him, find Jamie. He turned a smile to her. "Other people might not believe in you but, for what it's worth, your neighbour from four doors down does.

When she’s in a courtroom, Wendy Patrick, a deputy district attorney for San Diego, uses some of the roughest words in the English language. She has to, given that she prosecutes sex crimes. Yet just repeating the words is a challenge for a woman who not only holds a law degree but also degrees in theology and is an ordained Baptist minister. “I have to say (a particularly vulgar expletive) in court when I’m quoting other people, usually the defendants,” she admitted. There’s an important reason Patrick has to repeat vile language in court. “My job is to prove a case, to prove that a crime occurred,” she explained. “There’s often an element of coercion, of threat, (and) of fear. Colorful language and context is very relevant to proving the kind of emotional persuasion, the menacing, a flavor of how scary these guys are. The jury has to be made aware of how bad the situation was. Those words are disgusting.” It’s so bad, Patrick said, that on occasion a judge will ask her to tone things down, fearing a jury’s emotions will be improperly swayed. And yet Patrick continues to be surprised when she heads over to San Diego State University for her part-time work of teaching business ethics. “My students have no qualms about dropping the ‘F-bomb’ in class,” she said. “The culture in college campuses is that unless they’re disruptive or violating the rules, that’s (just) the way kids talk.” Experts say people swear for impact, but the widespread use of strong language may in fact lessen that impact, as well as lessen society’s ability to set apart certain ideas and words as sacred. . . . [C]onsider the now-conversational use of the texting abbreviation “OMG,” for “Oh, My God,” and how the full phrase often shows up in settings as benign as home-design shows without any recognition of its meaning by the speakers. . . . Diane Gottsman, an etiquette expert in San Antonio, in a blog about workers cleaning up their language, cited a 2012 Career Builder survey in which 57 percent of employers say they wouldn’t hire a candidate who used profanity. . . . She added, “It all comes down to respect: if you wouldn’t say it to your grandmother, you shouldn’t say it to your client, your boss, your girlfriend or your wife.” And what about Hollywood, which is often blamed for coarsening the language? According to Barbara Nicolosi, a Hollywood script consultant and film professor at Azusa Pacific University, an evangelical Christian school, lazy script writing is part of the explanation for the blue tide on television and in the movies. . . . By contrast, she said, “Bad writers go for the emotional punch of crass language,” hence the fire-hose spray of obscenities [in] some modern films, almost regardless of whether or not the subject demands it. . . . Nicolosi, who noted that “nobody misses the bad language” when it’s omitted from a script, said any change in the industry has to come from among its ranks: “Writers need to have a conversation among themselves and in the industry where we popularize much more responsible methods in storytelling,” she said. . . . That change can’t come quickly enough for Melissa Henson, director of grass-roots education and advocacy for the Parents Television Council, a pro-decency group. While conceding there is a market for “adult-themed” films and language, Henson said it may be smaller than some in the industry want to admit. “The volume of R-rated stuff that we’re seeing probably far outpaces what the market would support,” she said. By contrast, she added, “the rate of G-rated stuff is hardly sufficient to meet market demands.” . . . Henson believes arguments about an “artistic need” for profanity are disingenuous. “You often hear people try to make the argument that art reflects life,” Henson said. “I don’t hold to that. More often than not, ‘art’ shapes the way we live our lives, and it skews our perceptions of the kind of life we're supposed to live." [DN, Apr. 13, 2014]

A relentless, virulent campaign of denigration guarantees ongoing contact. The goal is not to end the children’s relationship with the other parent, it is to remain entangled with the ex. As long as they attack and accuse, they can look forward to some response. It is as if they are saying “I refuse to give you up. If I cannot have your love, I’ll hold on with hate. I will keep you involved whether you like it or not. We will continue to dominate each other’s thoughts. We will continue to stir strong feelings in each other.” These parents act as if their main goal in life is to make their ex miserable. Often they succeed. They may be so successful that they drive the alienated parent away: The target parent gives up trying to foster a relationship with the children. But the denigrating parent does not stop pursuing a relationship with the target. He or she merely finds another way to assure contact. A favorite forum is the courtroom. Litigation provides ample opportunities to provoke hostile engagement. Most of these actually occur before trial, in the form of discovery, interrogatories, and depositions. These legal tactics give bashing and brainwashing parents a front-row center seat from which to observe intimate details of their ex-spouse’s life.

Listen, before they get back, I want to ask you to join me for a show tomorrow.” Her body tingled at the thought. “I really need to go visit Walt. I haven’t seen him for days.” “Then we’ll go see him first, and if you don’t say yes, I may let one of these other young fellows buy your box.” Lincoln sucked in his cheeks to keep from laughing. “I think I saw that pimple-faced boy in the checkered shirt eyeing it.” “You wouldn’t dare.” “Say yes, or I just might.” “Do you play this unfair in a courtroom?” “Me?” He pressed his hand to his heart, feigning innocence. She rolled her eyes. “All right then, yes.

The problem is not covenant theology in general, but covenantal nomism in particular. Wright's primary objection to the imputation of Christ's active obedience is that it's a category mistake: "If we use the language of the law-court, it make no sense whatever to say that the judge imputes, imparts, bequeaths, conveys or otherwise transfers his righteousness to either the plaintiff or the defendant. Righteousness is not an object, a substance or gas which can be passed across the courtroom....To imagine the defendant somehow receiving the judge's righteousness is simply a category mistake." P.25

Those charges on me are concerned about my possession of bombs and my brother’s possession of bombs. Who do you see in this courtroom at this point who’s in possession of bombs, and ain’t that evident? Do you want evidence of who is in possession of the bombs they claim we made? Then look on that table and you have the evidence. Who is in possession of those bombs? Now ain’t it obvious? Ain’t it obvious? Don’t you see bombs there before you? Do you see bombs on this table or do you see bombs on the perpetrator’s table.   I’m charged with possession of bombs. My brother is charged with possession of bombs. They’re not really concerned with those bombs. If you will note, every charge that’s put on a person is preceded by the person. They don’t say that the bomb is guilty, the bombs are guilty. They say that the person is guilty. But they’ll say that you’re charged with bomb making. But the person is always—the person’s name always precedes the charges because they ain’t concerned with them bombs. They’re concerned with who the bombs are possessed by. As long as the Government’s possessing those bombs, it’s okay, it’s fine. But when they think that myself or some other black man is in possession of bombs, then there’s alarm in the system. You know, you’re not concerned about who possessed those bombs. If you did, I—the bombs would precede my name. I wouldn’t precede the bombs. And the charge that you have, the person’s name also precedes that bomb. That bomb is nothing but the vehicle and I’m supposed to be the driver. Because you’re not concerned with those bombs. You’re concerned with putting me on trial.

Next door is Partner, a hulking, heavily armed guy who wears black suits and takes me everywhere. Partner is my driver, bodyguard, confidant, paralegal, caddie, and only friend. I earned his loyalty when a jury found him not guilty of killing an undercover narcotics officer. We walked out of the courtroom arm in arm and have been inseparable ever since. On at least two occasions, off-duty cops have tried to kill him. On one occasion, they came after me. We’re still standing. Or perhaps I should say we’re still ducking.

I'll give you another chance," he says. "The next time it'll be jail. Keep this in mind. If you're brought in again, no excuses will go. Call the next case." Now one can follow Fanny. She walks out of the courtroom. The street swallows her. Nobody in the crowds knows what has happened. Fanny is anybody now. Still, one may follow. Perhaps something will reveal itself, something will add an illuminating touch to the incident of the courtroom.

the chain-of-custody document to the back of the search warrant application and was ready to go. “I’m out of here,” she announced. “You ever want to get together after work, I’m here, Amy. At least until the late show starts.” “Thanks,” Dodd said, seeming to pick up on Ballard’s worry. “I might take you up on that.” Ballard took the elevator down and then crossed the front plaza toward her car. She checked the windshield and saw no ticket. She decided to double down on her luck and leave the car there. The courthouse was only a block away on Temple; if she was fast and Judge Thornton had not convened court, she could be back to the car in less than a half hour. She quickened her pace. Judge Billy Thornton was a well-regarded mainstay in the local criminal justice system. He had served both as a public defender and as a deputy district attorney in his early years, before being elected to the bench and holding the position in Department 107 of the Los Angeles Superior Court for more than a quarter century. He had a folksy manner in the courtroom that concealed a sharp legal mind—one reason the presiding judge assigned wiretap search warrants to him. His full name was Clarence William Thornton but he preferred Billy, and his bailiff called it out every time he entered the courtroom: “The Honorable Billy Thornton presiding.” Thanks to the inordinately long wait for an elevator in the fifty-year-old courthouse, Ballard did not get to Department 107 until ten minutes before ten a.m., and she saw that court was about to convene. A man in blue county jail scrubs was at the defense table with his suited attorney sitting next to him. A prosecutor Ballard recognized but could not remember by name was at the other table. They appeared ready to go and the only party missing was the judge on the bench. Ballard pulled back her jacket so the badge on her belt could be seen by the courtroom deputy and went through the gate. She moved around the attorney tables and went to the clerk’s station to the right of the judge’s bench. A man with a fraying shirt collar looked up at her. The nameplate on his desk said ADAM TRAINOR. “Hi,” Ballard whispered, feigning breathlessness so Trainor would think she had run up the nine flights of steps and take pity. “Is there any chance I can get in to see the judge about a wiretap warrant before he starts court?” “Oh, boy, we’re just waiting on the last juror to get here before starting,” Trainor said. “You might have to come back at the lunch break.” “Can you please just ask him? The warrant’s only seven pages and most of it’s boilerplate stuff he’s read a million times. It won’t take him long.” “Let me see. What’s your name and department?” “Renée Ballard, LAPD. I’m working a cold case homicide. And there is a time element on this.” Trainor picked up his phone, punched a button, and swiveled on his chair so his back was to Ballard and she would have difficulty hearing the phone call. It didn’t matter because it was over in twenty seconds and Ballard expected the answer was no as Trainor swiveled toward her. But she was wrong. “You can go back,” Trainor said. “He’s in his chambers. He’s got about ten minutes. The missing juror just called from the garage.” “Not with those elevators,” Ballard said. Trainor opened a half door in the cubicle that allowed Ballard access to the rear door of the courtroom. She walked through a file room and then into a hallway. She had been in judicial chambers on other cases before and knew that this hallway led to a line of offices assigned to the criminal-court judges. She didn’t know whether to go right or left until she heard a voice say, “Back here.” It was to the left. She found an open door and saw Judge Billy Thornton standing next to a desk, pulling on his black robe for court. “Come in,” he said. Ballard entered. His chambers were just like the others she had been

Young attorney Royal France, a member of the Brooklyn Young Republican Club, then testified that Barnes had told him direct elections were not practical, “because it exposed the candidates to too much publicity; that the double campaign for the same office threw too much limelight on the candidates and that he could ruin the reputation of any man living if he threw enough limelight on it.” France had disagreed, he said, saying the kind of man who could stand any kind of limelight was the “kind of man we wanted to get into public office.

The issue was that my lawyers had accused Dershowitz of saying he could make the whole case go away for seven million dollars. Four lawyers in a room testified he made that offer. He denied it furiously, his mother looking on proudly in the courtroom as her son performed.

Kenny remembers his dad’s favorite saying and cherishes the memory: The key to success is a solid education.

Let’s just say that I am tired of sharing my city.” Am I speaking your language, asshole?

We need to find more body parts if possible, and we need divers and evidence retrieval specialists. You got those, too?” “Just say the word, and they are yours, like the song goes.” “What song?” “The Tom Jones song. ‘Help Yourself.’ Do you guys remember that one?” “You’re really old, Micah. How old is Tom Jones, anyway? Eighty?” “I don’t know. So what? Is it illegal to remember Tom Jones?” Micah turned his fist into a microphone, held it up to his mouth, and began to sing and gyrate his lower torso in a circular manner, his best imitation of Tom Jones in his prime years. “Now there’s an image that will be impossible to erase from my mind,” Zack said, looking repulsed.

Your infiltration idea sounds dangerous to me. I say we get Breitner, now. What’s a group without its leader? I’d call in the Feds, sooner than later. Cut off the head of the snake…

Your objection is sustained, Mr. Blake. Please refrain from using the words ‘crime’ and/or ‘crime scene,’ Mr. Weaver. These terms call for a legal conclusion that the evidence has not yet established.” Zack almost laughed out loud at Judge Shipley’s ruling on his objection. The jury just heard the trial judge say that there had been insufficient evidence offered, thus far, to establish murder.

If two people were present when a grenade was exploded and one of those people lost his life, which of the two would be more likely to have exploded the grenade, the one who lived or the one who died?” “The one who lived, of course.” “And why do you say, ‘of course?’” “To put this into lay terminology, the one who pulls the pin and throws the grenade has the element of surprise, knows which way he’s going to throw the grenade and approximately how long he has to get the hell out of there.

Coming on social media to get sympathy for rape cases cannot stop rapist, Facebook is not a police station, Twitter is not a courtroom, and Instagram cannot convict or punish a rapist.

am only going to say this, that the whole trouble with the defendant in this case and the reason he has got himself in this position is due to the fact that he did not follow out the advice that was given by Cardinal Woolsey to Cromwell, ‘Cast aside ambition, by this sin fell the Angels.

Up in the courtroom, I found my lawyer waiting. My cousin Mlungisi was there, too, in the gallery, ready to post my bail if things went my way. The bailiff read out my case number, and the judge looked up at me. “How are you?” he said. I broke down. I’d been putting on this tough-guy facade for nearly a week, and I just couldn’t do it anymore. “I-I’m not fine, Your Honor. I’m not fine.” He looked confused. “What?!” I said, “I’m not fine, sir. I’m really suffering.” “Why are you telling me this?” “Because you asked how I was.” “Who asked you?” “You did. You just asked me.” “I didn’t say, ‘How are you?’ I said, ‘Who are you?’ Why would I waste time asking ‘How are you?’! This is jail. I know everyone is suffering down there. If I asked everyone ‘How are you?’ we’d be here all day. I said, ‘Who are you?’ State your name for the record.” “Trevor Noah.

And allowing oneself to remain vulnerable to disease remains a legal privilege today. Dictionaries aside, what it means to have a conscience may be no more clear to us now than it was in 1898. We do recognize when it is lacking—she has no conscience, we say. But what exactly is missing? I put this question to my sister, who teaches ethics at a Jesuit college and is a member of the North American Kant Society. “It’s tricky,” she says. “In the eighteenth century, Kant wrote that we have a duty to ourselves to examine our conscience. This implies that it’s not transparent, that it must be scrutinized and deciphered. Kant thought of conscience as an inner judge and used the metaphor of a courtroom to explain its operation. In the courtroom of conscience, the self is both judge and judged.” I ask her if this means our conscience emerges from thought and is a product of our minds. “It’s an evolving concept,” she says. “It may have once been more closely associated with the emotions, but we still say we feel a pang of conscience—it involves a unity of thought and feeling.” Kant, she tells me, called the inner judge a “scrutinizer of hearts.” “The part that’s tricky,” my sister says, “is how you discern between a sense of discomfort and what your conscience is telling you.” This question remains with me, and I am disturbed by the possibility that I could mistake the call of my conscience for something else. I ask a former professor of mine, a novelist who teaches the Old Testament as literature, how one recognizes one’s own conscience. She looks at me sternly and says, “It’s a very distinct feeling. I don’t think one’s conscience is easily confused with any other feeling.

When I worked as a law clerk in the Cook County prosecutor’s office, the sheriff assigned to our courtroom would brag about how she would torment families of defendants. When families called the courtroom and tried to locate their loved ones and their cases, she answered the phone with a jovial, “County morgue.” She would then pause as though she were checking on the defendant’s name and say, “Oh, they’re dead,” and then hang up the phone.

You’re a total boss babe; you just gotta embrace it.” Hands planted on the table, Cat put on the game face she used in the courtroom. “You stand your ground. And anytime some dude thinks he can talk over you, you hold up your hand, Kamala Harris the shit out of them, and say I’m speaking.

You’re a total boss babe; you just gotta embrace it.” Hands planted on the table, Cat put on the game face she used in the courtroom. “You stand your ground. And anytime some dude thinks he can talk over you, you hold up your hand, Kamala Harris the shit out of them, and say I’m speaking.

The black man once was lauded as the head of the black family; now, in many if not most cases, the black family is headed by a "system" or a noncaring judge in a courtroom who has the final say on what happens or doesn't happen with regard to the family and child. Now they have convinced many people that black fathers need a punitive system, one that was created by racist white men and feminists, to police and monitor their parenting in the event the relationship that produced the child fails, to supposedly protect the interest and wellbeing of the black child and black mother. Yet, the typical outcome when the system intervenes is more damage being done to the future wellbeing of all parties involved, especially the children.

No one in the audience was surprised. Doreen stood and, crying, hurried from the courtroom. Judge Tynan, at the defense’s request, polled the jury, and each one said he’d heard the verdicts read out loud and agreed with them. It was over. The judge thanked them and said they would now be moving to the penalty phase. He asked them to step into the jury room. Judge Tynan asked the defense how long they would need to prepare for the penalty phase. Clark said three days. Daniel asked for at least two weeks, saying they were bringing people in from out of town. Tynan told Daniel he should have already lined up any witnesses and gave the defense one week to prepare. The jury was now brought out and told the penalty phase would take place on the twenty-ninth. The judge reminded them not to talk with anyone in the media. He offered them the use of the back elevator to avoid the waiting reporters and cameras.

begin to see that when we say God will “justify” rather than merely “acquit,” the action has a reconstituting force — hence the insufficiency of the courtroom metaphor “to acquit.” God’s righteousness is the same thing as his justice, and his justice is powerfully at work justifying, which does not mean excusing, passing over, or even “forgiving and forgetting,” but actively making right that which is wrong.

When I left the courtroom that June day, after reading my statement, courage had been the furthest thing form my mind. Now I understood that in this life I've been given, I had done something good, created power from pain, provided solace while remaining honest about the hardships victims face. In turn, they showed me who I was. Mow it was just a matter of figuring out how to say thank you.

on the other hand, am known as a bitch both in the courtroom and out. I don’t say any of this, though. Not because he continues to speak, but because I want to go home and fixate on that. Why do I have to be my work? Why am I defined by that? Or

Every time you walk into a courtroom is going to feel different. Some days, you’re going to feel confident as hell. Some days, you’re going to wish you’d had another week to prepare. Some cases are going to be automatic wins. Some, you’re going to have to fight like hell. But one thing will remain consistent, and that’s your presentation—the suit covering your body, the expression locked on your face, and the briefcase in your hand.” I leaned my face close to hers. “If you ever need it—and I’m not saying you will, but if you do—that handle can feel like my fingers, and you can squeeze it as hard as you need to, baby, and I’ll always be there for you.

Lassiter once told him over drinks that he viewed the courtroom as a saloon in an old Western. He liked to burst through the swinging doors, knock over a poker table, pistol whip a gunfighter, toss a big lug through a window, and flip a chair into the mirror above the bar. “And that, Alex, is just when I say ‘good morning.

The Hawaii Police Department gave me a citation for sleeping in my car. I went to the courthouse wearing a NASA tee-shirt and checked out the courtroom where I was supposed to go to for my future citation hearing. Much to my surprise, I walked in on the Mauna Kea protectors court hearing that I had no idea was taking place! I could see everyone looking at the NASA tee-shirt I was wearing and I was asked to leave by the court attendant. I told him it was public hearing and I was staying! I am a Mauna Kea protector also and I had only wore the NASA tee-shirt that day because it was the only clean shirt I had. I never bought the NASA tee-shirt, it was a gift from my daughter. Most of my tee-shirts say protect Mauna Kea!

She turns to Warren, Do you think she’s an alcoholic? How insulting, I think, and brace myself for Warren’s assessment, already dredging up a defense: I’ve never been five minutes late to pick up Dev. I’m a room parent, for God’s sake. I lead toddlers around the aquarium on a rope. No, he says. (How my love for him doth bloom, the drinking mind thinks.) She likes a drink. (Or nine, the scolding, sober part of me thinks.) But who doesn’t? he concludes. (Those WASPs down so much sauce—the sober mind observes—that Warren wouldn’t know a dipsomaniac if one hit him with a polo mallet.) That’s the kind of courtroom convened in my skull, prosecution and defense.

ENCOUNTER IS NOT AN ANSWER! Encounter of all four accused in the Vet's heinous gangrape and murder according to police could be dubious and never be exonerated. If police say they were trying to flee the place of investigation and actual rewind of the incident by the inmates is even more ludicrous. Well, they might have brought with the full cache' of gun-totting policemen besides the accused themselves were naturally subdued by the weight of crime and consequences and surrendered. In the situation, how could they dare to get away could be anybody's plain guess! This is not the way unless all accused were officially booked and brought to justice and punished, for the whole process of dispensing of crime and punishment should be done openly in the mid of public glare. Why courtrooms have been constructed and the whole judiciary is built up and being emphasised. Encounter is a 'short-cut' measure that ignores statutes and judicial system altogether. Yes! Our process of justice should never be lackadaisical and partisan, to say the least!

You really want to know?” Beatrice nodded. Catherine simply waited. If he wanted to tell them, he would. Clarence was not the sort of man you could persuade or plead with. “All right. It was the year I graduated from law school. Like the other black men in my class, I was inspired by Judge Ruffin, the first black man to graduate from Harvard Law and the first to become a judge in Massachusetts. I thought I was going to be just like him. Me, a poor boy raised by a widowed mother who used to clean other people’s houses to pay the rent. Well, I went through Howard on scholarship, then Harvard on scholarship, and my first year out I worked for an organization offering legal aid to other poor folk—black, Irish, Italian, all sorts. I was sent to one of the counties in the western part of the state, to defend a black man accused of raping a white woman. That was the first time a judge called me ‘boy.’ I got my client off all right—the woman herself stood in the witness stand to say it wasn’t rape. They wanted to get married. That was legal in Massachusetts, and she was of age, but her father didn’t want her to marry a black man, so he told the sheriff that my client had raped her. She was visibly pregnant. “My client walked out of that courthouse a free man, but there was a crowd waiting for him outside, and suddenly her brother stepped out of that crowd. He was the sheriff’s deputy. He had a gun, and he said he was going to shoot that damn . . . his language isn’t fit to repeat. He was determined to kill my client. Without thinking, I jumped on him and wrestled with him for the gun. It went off. . . . He bled to death in my arms. So I was tried for manslaughter in that courthouse, in front of that judge. Despite his jury instructions, I was acquitted—you could almost see him frothing at the mouth with fury and tearing his hair out, the day I walked out of that courtroom, a free man. Everyone in that crowd had seen it was an accident, but who was going to give me a job after that? It didn’t matter that I was innocent. My face had been on the cover of the Boston Globe as the black man who’d killed a white policeman.

In my experience of human behaviour (and I've seen all there is to see, it's fair to say), I've concluded there aren't but five motivations for a man to do anything. They're hardly mysterious, you know: money, hunger, lust, power, survival. That's all there is. You hear in the courtrooms and in the cinema all sorts of fancy-dress explanations why someone becomes Prime Minister or kills his neighbours. But if you listen hard, it's all just the same five balls, juggled up in the air, decorated with distracting words. No one ever did a damn thing but for one of those five.

When a man can’t accept rejection, there’s no such thing as letting him down easy. So just accept the fact that he might call you a mean, stuck up B! among other things depending on how bruised his ego is over you politely saying you’re not interested. It’s not you- it’s him.

Picture it! Sicily, 1922 you’re on trial for standing your ground and what you’ve written about the prosecuting attorneys shoes makes into the cross examination- and court record, I’d say you’re a legend. They have no defense. You’ve just pissed the girls off. - Freely Speaking

Very well,’ he says. He takes his glasses off. ‘Though one wonders why we got this far at all.’ ‘Your Honour, sometimes things become crystal clear only when one is faced with the immediacy of them,’ Patricia says evenly. ‘Many a defendant has changed their plea at the door of the courtroom.

I’m a solicitor, to be strictly accurate,’ Gwen tuned back into the conversation to hear Cam saying. ‘Which is like a lawyer, only more boring,’ Harry supplied. ‘Thanks for that,’ Cam said, ‘but, essentially, yes.’ ‘So you don’t do all that exciting courtroom stuff?’ Ruby sounded disappointed. ‘Barristers do the big-ticket stuff. They go to High Court and argue criminal cases. Solicitors deal with the big three.’ Cam ticked them off his fingers. ‘Divorce, death and The Council.

Do you think people can change, Shiv? Like, really change? At their core?" Her sister sighs so hard it sounds like a gale blowing down the line. "What does that even mean, 'at their core'? What does a person changing actually look like? How would you know if they did?" "They'd act differently. Different to how you'd expect them to." "Based on what?" "Based on how they'd acted in the past." "I think people can change their habits and behaviors," Siobhan says carefully, as if she's on the stand in a courtroom, testifying for the defense, and the hot-shot prosecutor has just tried to trip her up with a cleverly worded question. "And sometimes their mind and their beliefs. People get older and wiser and have more experiences, and that all updates their... let's call it their central operating system. Because everything they do they learned in the first place, right? No one is born being X, Y, or Z. And theoretically, if you can learn how to be a certain way, you can unlearn it, too. But at the same time, you can't erase the past. You can lock it in a box and put that box away, but you can't make it disappear.

Vindication is mine says the Author.

Another common set of objections that should not detain us too long are those that exhibit what I call ‘irrational rejectionism’—the dogmatic dismissal of technologies of which the critic has no direct experience (see Chapter 3). I reiterate this here because it surely will not do, no matter how eminent the rejectionist, to dismiss the idea of online courts without seeing a few systems in action and spending some time immersed in the literature. I say this with some passion because I am assailed almost daily by articulate and forceful judges and lawyers who snub online courts without any evidence of their operation in practice nor their purpose in principle. This kind of rhetoric would be accepted neither in the courtroom nor in informed public discourse, and will not be admitted here either.

A mix of local news, world news, and shocking headlines coupled with experience and real life scenarios coated with imagination and intimate thoughts... the ones you can't say aloud = BOOKS

The future of our democracy may depend on other racial and ethnic groups learning to see that our fates are, in fact, inseparably intertwined. If we, as a nation, are ever to free ourselves from the logic and politics of white supremacy, we must not allow ourselves to imagine that progress is made if the system causes greater harm to 'them' than 'us.' Nor can we be seduced into believing that ending racially hostile rhetoric is the same thing as ending systems of racial and social control, or that simply electing a different president or a different political party will necessarily free us from the history and cycle of creating caste-like systems in America. More is required of us in these times. We must learn to care for one another across all boundaries and borders and build a movement of movements rooted in a love so fierce that when a Mexican child is ripped from the arms of his mother at the border, and when a black child is ripped from the arms of her mother as she's arrested on the streets of New York, and when a white child is ripped from the arms of her mother in a courtroom in Oklahoma, we feel the same pain, the same agony, as though it were our own children. For many of us, it is our own children whose lives are at stake. More than a century after W.E.B. Du Bois declared that 'the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line,' our political landscape remains riven by race and corrupted by greed. Yet there is reason for hope. New movements, led by new generations and those most impacted by injustice, are rising to face the challenges this moment in our history presents. The struggle to birth a truly inclusive, egalitarian democracy-a nation in which every voice and every life truly matters-did not begin with us and will not end with us. This struggle is as old as the nation itself and the birth process has been painful, to say the least. My greatest hope and prayer is that we will serve as faithful midwives and do what we can in our lifetimes to make America, finally, what it must become.

I learned that some cops lie. This was a brutal and profoundly disturbing realization: Those in control are not necessarily trustworthy. More importantly, authority is not necessarily to be obeyed, and certainly not feared. There is always a way to challenge authority, either in the courtroom or in the media or in the voting booth. He has done all of them many times, and usually successfully. In other words, he believes that it is possible to change a situation for the better, even in the face of entrenched authority. So what am I saying? I am proud of this man. I respect and admire his vitality, his courage, his insight, his perverse resistance to security and predictability, his deliberate disregard for propriety, his ability to make me see and think differently. Ultimately, I love and respect him because he really lives,

They will watch how you treat other employees; who gets the "good" schedule and who goes on break first. They will watch how you handle yourself in times of stress. They will evaluate your character when the rules are disobeyed. They will wait to see what you do when they feel they are deserving of recognition or when they have screwed up. They will see if you jump in and help when it's busy or if you hide in the office? So yeah, they are watching. This is why acting with integrity, building trust, doing the right thing, being honest, and accepting the role of role model is critical. When you know people are watching, you tend to be more aware of what you are doing. If you need just one more reason to do the right things, think about this. Picture yourself on the witness stand in a courtroom. A lawyer is asking you to defend some specific actions you took as a leader. Can you defend yourself? Can you justify what you did and convince a jury of your peers, beyond a reasonable doubt, that what you did was right and just? If the lawyer brought up other witnesses to corroborate your story, would they? Are you confident that your actions were observed and judged by others as right and just? It's one thing for you to say it, even to believe it. It's quite another for someone else to back you up. That's a pretty high standard to hold yourself to, but that's the job of a leader. You no longer get to wallow in anonymity. You are front and center, in the spotlight, and it's showtime.

Madison!” Bob’s head jerks up and he steps back three paces from me, and all the warmth that was him is suddenly gone. “Dad!” I cry. My father steps between me and Bob. “What are you doing here?” “Skip called me.” Skip and I grew up together. The traitor. “Skip said some ex-convict was carrying you out of the bar over his shoulder.” He looks from Bob to me and back again. “Is that true?” “I can explain, sir,” Bob begins, but my dad shoots him a look. “Why do you look so familiar to me?” Dad asks him. “We met in the courtroom, sir.” “What’s your name?” “Bob Caster, sir.” Dad’s eyes narrow. “One of Phil’s boys?” “Yes, sir.” Bob scratches his nose like he’s suddenly uncomfortable. “Why are you with my daughter?” “We’re on a date, sir.” “One that ends with you throwing her over you shoulder?” “That’s actually how it starts, sir.” A chuckle bursts from my lips and I cover my mouth to keep it in. “Sorry,” I mutter. “Madison, get in the car.” Dad points to his fancy car, which is parked right behind the one I’m sitting on. “With all due respect, sir, I’d like to take her home.” “If you had any respect for my daughter, you wouldn’t have been all over her on the hood of a car in the middle of the street.” “It was just a kiss, Dad—” “It looked like more than that.” “It was,” Bob interjects. His eyes meet mine. “It was more than that.” “What was it?” I whisper, past the lump that’s suddenly clogging my throat. “More,” Bob says. “I don’t know how to explain it. But it was more.” “More than you deserve,” Dad snaps. “My daughter will not have a relationship with an ex-convict.” Bob takes a step back and stuffs his hands in his pockets. “I understand, sir,” he says. “Good night, Madison.” “Don’t go!” I cry. He rounds the front of his car and gets inside. He cranks it and waits for me to get my butt off it. “You deserve better than him, Madison,” Dad says. I get off the hood of the car and glare at him. “Dad!” “Get in the car, Madison!” he shouts. He points his finger in the direction he wants me to go. I stomp over to the car and get in, and my heart breaks when I see that Bob is already driving away. His eyes meet mine briefly in his mirror and I see a world of hurt inside him. “I’m not going to my apartment, Dad,” I tell him. “Yes, you are.” “No, I’m not.” Dad heaves a sigh. “What do you want, Madison?” “I want to get to know him, Dad. That’s all. I like him a lot.” “I could tell,” he grunts. “He’s not the one for you.

I kiss Orion deeply, one last time. “Are you sure you don’t want to come in with me?” I ask.               “I don’t think it’s going to help your case,” the raptor replies. “I mean, some people just don’t understand that love is real. You’ve gotta put yourself in there position. They’re so used to everything working a certain way, women kissing men, men kissing men… not men kissing dinosaurs.”               I want to protest but I know that he’s right. Even the most liberal of juries is going to have a hard time with this muscular dinosaur sitting there in the courtroom while I argue my case. It’s better if we part ways here.               “I’ll see you soon.” I tell him, my voice quaking. We both know that’s not going to happen, but we’re trying our best to pretend.               “I love you,” Orion says to me one last time.               “I love you, too” I assure him.               We kiss again and then I finally muster up the discipline to pull away and push out through the car’s door. I stand up on the sidewalk before the courthouse as flash bulbs burst with blinding luminescence. I shield my eyes, stunned for a moment as I struggle to collect my bearings.               “Mr. Tanner!” someone interjects, shoving a microphone in my face. “Is it true you hate unicorns?”               “What?” I stammer.               “We understand that your mission was funded off the profits of illegally traded unicorn tears, do you have anything to say to that?”               “I mean…” I’m still trying to collect my bearings, struggling to sort through her words. “No, wait, yeah I do. That’s really bad, I didn’t know anything about it.”               The reporter nods and repeats my words back to me. “Really bad… so you’re saying it’s not awful? Is that what you’re saying?”               “No, I just…” I start.               “Because it sounds like you’re not really coming out against the illegal trade of unicorn tears,” the reporter continues.               “I literally heard about it five seconds ago,” I counter. “That sounds terrible, I don’t really know anything about it but it sounds really bad and I don’t support that.”               The reporter nods. “Okay it’s really hard to understand you when you speak in code like this. Can you just answer the question? Do you or don’t you support bad guys doing bad things? Because you haven’t really come out against them.”               “I don’t support bad guys,” I try to say as clearly as I possibly can.               The reporter just stares at me blankly. “So you’re not going to come out against them?”               Suddenly, someone from the mob pushes me from behind and I stumble forward. The entire gang of hungry journalists and newscasters has reached a tipping point and I realize now that if I don’t continue onward there is going to be a problem.               I

And he remembers the judge’s warning. There were to be no outbursts in the courtroom, no matter the verdict. Then, adding his own two cents, the judge said, “I don’t have an ounce of respect for you, boy. The nigra issue is an important one in this country. But you boys goin’ ’bout it the wrong way. And that’s all I’m ’on say on it.