Jessica Mitford Quotes

The criminal law tries to define moral standards.

Laws undertake to punish only overt acts.

Stripped of ethical rationalizations and philosophical pretensions, a crime is anything that a group in power chooses to prohibit.

Law is largely crystallized custom.

Law … is but words and paper without the hands and swords of men

What is considered sinful in one of the great religions to which citizens belong isn't necessarily sinful in the others. Criminal law therefore cannot be based on the notion of sin …

Laws or ordinances unobserved, or partially attended to, had better never have been made.

Bad facts make bad law.

Law is when you don't have a method of solving a problem... It's just nailing a proclamation on a wall saying, 'Don't do this.'

There will always be a rule. There will be people who break the rules. There will be consequences. We fundamentally think these things will be true for a time. The question becomes, What are the consequences? Who enforces the consequences? What are the worst consequences?

We rely on the rule of law. I think we've lost touch with that concept in Washington.

Legislation may at times be disobeyed, but never law, for the breaking brings swift punishment of its own.

Touch but a cobweb in Westminster Hall, and the old spider of the law is out upon you with all his vermin at his heels.

We are not supposed to go out and kill all those we suspect to have committed a crime.

In a civilized society, all crimes are likely to be sins, but most sins are not and ought not to be treated as crimes. Man's ultimate responsibility is to God alone.

We have one authority and one law and everyone has the responsibility to follow that law and that authority.

You can't legislate morality.

The United States is the greatest law factory the world has ever known.

People are, well, only human. We know that. The rule of law is borne out in identifying, condemning, and punishing those who violate the standards on which we all agree. This is exactly what we do in America.

For a government to declare a vice to be a crime, and to punish it as such, is an attempt to falsify the very nature of things. It is as absurd as it would be to declare truth to be falsehood, or falsehood truth.

Laws are generally not understood by three sorts of persons, viz, by those who make them, by those who execute them, and by those who suffer if they break them.

I'm a prosecutor first and foremost, and as a judge, I put people in jail for extended periods of time when that was appropriate.

Laws should be like clothes. They should be made to fit the people they serve.

After 25-plus years as a lawyer, prosecutor, and defense attorney, I have developed a deep appreciation for both the wisdom of the law and the role that jurists play in framing the rights and responsibilities that define our society.

It is not wisdom but Authority that makes a law.