Courtroom Procedure Quotes

Americans have grown a great deal more realistic about lawyers and the law. I think that's all for the good. A lot of people will say to you these days, 'If you are looking for justice, don't go to a courtroom.' That's just a more realistic perspective on what happens in the legal process.

Criminal cases require strategy, and prosecutors should attempt to prove only what can be proved.

When I used to teach civil procedure as a law professor, I would begin the year by telling my students that 'civil procedure is the etiquette of ritualized battle.' The phrase, which did not originate with me, captured the point that peaceful, developed societies resolve disputes by law rather than by force.

I went to law school.

Law school! A man must read law in the court house.

I was a prosecutor in Brooklyn in the homicide division and then as a senior assistant district attorney.

I want to study law.

I was a chief justice. And before that, I was a district court judge, handled major felonies, including capital murder cases; and I handled major civil litigation.

I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution.

Demanding that all of us presume every defendant innocent outside of a courtroom is to demand that we stop evaluating facts, thereby suffocating independent thought and opinion. There is nothing 'reasonable' about that.

You know I took an oath to tell the truth when I took the witness stand.

The civil jury is a valuable safeguard to liberty.

And I've always felt comfortable certainly in a courtroom because you're just performing. And there was a time in my life when I thought when I grew up I'd be a trial lawyer myself.

What do lawyers learn in law school? They learn to win... What we've got to start thinking about is how do we solve problems.

I was a sitting judge in Manhattan. I was a supervising judge in Manhattan, and they said to me, 'Did you ever think of doing what you do on television?'

At the end of the table, the secretary was reading the decision in some case, but in such a mournful and monotonous voice, that the condemned man himself would have fallen asleep while listening to it. The judge, no doubt, would have been the first of all to do so, had he not entered into an engrossing conversation while it was going on.

And here in Los Angeles, once again, I'm going to go down and be a witness. There's a guilty plea. I don't mind being on the witness stand, but I think they mind it a lot.

Trials by the adversarial contest must in time go the way of the ancient trial by battle and blood.

Yes. I did more research than I ever wanted to and saw some things I wish I didn't. I went on ride-alongs, spent time with Homicide, Cold Case, and SVU detectives, hung out in subways learning how to spot pervs and pick-pockets, viewed an autopsy, went to a police firing range, and witnessed court cases and I read, read, read.

I'd love to do a court-room drama. I loved 'Ally McBeal.' That was one of the main reasons I went to law school.

People have a false understanding of what our legal system is like - how it works/operates - from shows like 'Law and Order,' which suggest that lawyers appear on demand and do a tremendous amount of investigation and background research.

When I present evidence, I expect the judge to hear and see all the evidence that gets presented.

Yes, I was going to law school and it was closed in '69.

People tune into court shows because they want to learn something and see resolution quickly.

I was in the courtroom prosecuting violent felonies for well over a decade.