Quotes

I sometimes wish that people would put a little more emphasis upon the observance of the law than they do upon its enforcement.

Body is a home, a prison and a grave.

Some laws of state aimed at curbing crime are even more criminal.

Extreme justice is extreme injustice.

When is conduct a crime, and when is a crime not a crime? When Somebody Up There -- a monarch, a dictator, a Pope, a legislator -- so decrees.

Nothing can be more abhorrent to democracy than to imprison a person or keep him in prison because he is unpopular. This is really the test of civilization.

On average, drug prisoners spend more time in federal prison than rapists, who often get out on early release because of the overcrowding in prison caused by the Drug War.

Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.

No matter how you seem to fatten on a crime, that can never be good for the bee which is bad for the hive.

We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.

Nor cell, nor chain, nor dungeon speaks to the murderer like the voice of solitude.

Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X came out of prison stronger.

Whatever is worthy to be loved for anything is worthy of preservation. A wise and dispassionate legislator, if any such should ever arise among men, will not condemn to death him who has done or is likely to do more service than injury to society. Blocks and gibbets are the nearest objects with legislators, and their business is never with hopes or with virtues.

I am an expert of electricity. My father occupied the chair of applied electricity at the state prison.

Let us remember that justice must be observed even to the lowest.

The perfection of a thing consists in its essence; there are perfect criminals, as there are men of perfect probity.

Care should be taken that the punishment does not exceed the guilt; and also that some men do not suffer for offenses for which others are not even indicted.

The law does not pretend to punish everything that is dishonest. That would seriously interfere with business.

We have initiated programs for re-entry offenders, since some 500,000 to 600,000 offenders will come out of prison each year for the next three or four years. We want to have positive alternatives when they come back to the community.

Trial by jury itself, instead of being a security to persons who are accused, shall be a delusion, a mockery, and a snare.

Law is merely the expression of the will of the strongest for the time being, and therefore laws have no fixity, but shift from generation to generation.

Concepts of justice must have hands and feet to carry out justice in every case in the shortest possible time and the lowest possible cost. That is the challenge to every lawyer and judge in America.

He who does not prevent a crime when he can, encourages it.

In a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes.

Faults of the head are punished in this world, those of the heart in another; but as most of our vices are compound, so also is their punishment.