Legal Inconsistency Quotes

We are experiencing a real confusion here in the United States, you know. Why is it OK to drink, but it's not OK to take drugs? Blah, blah, blah. What's a crime? What's criminality? What can you do, what can't you do, and so forth. All these things are really confusing. A lot of it is really contradictory; it doesn't really make sense.

My mother negotiated a plea deal, and my father went to trial. I think one thing we notice in their case that kind of stands out is how, in some ways, arbitrary the outcomes in the criminal justice system can be. And they did basically the same thing, identical thing.

The fact that people would receive widely disparate sentences in different parts of the country was untenable.

In Illinois a pregnant woman who takes an illegal drug can be prosecuted for 'delivering a controlled substance to a minor.' This is an explicit recognition that the unborn is a person with rights of her own. But that same woman who is prosecuted and jailed for endangering her child is perfectly free to abort her child. In America today, it is illegal to harm your preborn child, but it is perfectly legal to kill him.

Why is it that some people, you know, think we should obey the Constitution sometimes and not other times.

Law is a formless mass of isolated decisions.

Equity is a roguish thing. For Law we have a measure, know what to trust to; Equity is according to the conscience of him that is Chancellor, and as that is larger or narrower, so is Equity. 'T is all one as if they should make the standard for the measure we call a "foot" a Chancellor's foot; what an uncertain measure would this be! One Chancellor has a long foot, another a short foot, a third an indifferent foot. 'T is the same thing in the Chancellor's conscience.

Law must be viewed as a formless mass of isolated decisions.

I believe that in your heart you already know something is profoundly wrong. When bartenders are responsible for drunk drivers' acts, and gunmakers are responsible for criminals' acts, and nobody is responsible for O. J. Simpson's acts, something is wrong.