I would not look to the U.S. Constitution if I were drafting a constitution in 2012.

Due process should matter.

I love being in a courtroom.

The clearest way to show what the rule of law means to us in everyday life is to recall what has happened when there is no rule of law.

Make crime pay. Become a lawyer.

In 2008, I spoke out against calling the president a Muslim as if that was a curse. And then in 2012, once again, I was very disturbed about some of the intolerance I was seeing in the party, so I made a statement saying there’s a level of intolerance in some parts of the Republican Party. And there was, and I think there still is.

A judge sworn to decide impartially can offer no forecasts, no hints, for that would show not only disregard for the specifics of the particular case, it would display disdain for the entire judicial process.

It is a fundamental principle of criminal law that an imputed offense must correspond exactly to the type of crime described by law. If no law applies exactly to the point in question, then there is no offense.

Act that your principle of action might safely be made a law for the whole world.

The penalty for laughing in a courtroom is six months in jail; if it were not for this penalty, the jury would never hear the evidence.

It is possible for one never to transgress a single law and still be a bastard.

Shame may restrain what law does not prohibit.

To live outside the law, you must be honest.

Some may remember, if you have good memories, that there used to be a concept in Anglo-American law called a presumption of innocence, innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Now that’s so deep in history that there’s no point even bringing it up, but it did once exist.

It is difficult to make our material condition better by the best law, but it is easy enough to ruin it by bad laws.

On the whole, we think of our consumers – other judges, lawyers, the public. The law that the Supreme Court establishes is the law that they must live by, so all things considered, it’s better to have it clearer than confusing.

Most states in the union where the death penalty is theoretically on the books don’t have executions.

I get very little sleep when the court is sitting.

You’re innocent until proven guilty.

None of my peers avoided prison. None of ‚em.

The notion that it is improper to look beyond the borders of the United States in grappling with hard questions has a certain kinship to the view that the U.S. Constitution is a document essentially frozen in time as of the date of its ratification.

Justice that love gives is a surrender, justice that law gives is a punishment.

Even when laws have been written down, they ought not always to remain unaltered.

Law, without force, is impotent.

Judges must beware of hard constructions and strained inferences, for there is no worse torture than that of laws.

The Artist is he who detects and applies the law from observation of the works of Genius, whether of man or Nature. The Artisan is he who merely applies the rules which others have detected.

Arizona presents no specific reason for excepting capital defendants from the constitutional protections extended to defendants generally, and none is readily apparent.

To know the laws is not to memorize their letter but to grasp their full force and meaning.

A judge is a law student who marks his own examination papers.

The safety of the people shall be the highest law.

It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.

No man is above the law and no man is below it: nor do we ask any man’s permission when we ask him to obey it.

If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.

The strictest law sometimes becomes the severest injustice.

Justice is what is established; and thus all our established laws will necessarily be regarded as just without examination, since they are established.

The law is reason, free from passion.

At his best, man is the noblest of all animals; separated from law and justice he is the worst.

If the law is upheld only by government officials, then all law is at an end.

The place of justice is a hallowed place.

It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right.

Obedience of the law is demanded; not asked as a favor.

I don’t know the law, the kind of law of quantity and quality, but I think the opportunity of people being able to express themselves and to have the means of production is a great thing. It’s also changing how we’re telling stories.

Just because you’ve seen ‚My Cousin Vinny‘ doesn’t qualify you to be a federal judge.

I think we all change each other’s paths. I don’t know which law idea that is in physics, but I don’t think any of us can live without affecting one another.

Retaliation is related to nature and instinct, not to law. Law, by definition, cannot obey the same rules as nature.

The jury consist of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.

It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do.

Even Gaddafi’s adversaries assure us that he stood out for his intelligence as a student; he was expelled from high-school for his anti-monarchic activities. He managed to enroll in another high-school and later graduated in law at the University of Benghazi at the age of 21.

I do hope that some of my dissents will one day be the law.

In matters of conscience, the law of the majority has no place.

The roaring thunder of the law and the fear of the terror of judgment are both used to bring us to Christ, but the final victory culminating in our salvation is won through God’s loving-kindness.

All human laws are, properly speaking, only declaratory; they have no power over the substance of original justice.

Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.

I understood that with the swipe of my pen as a prosecutor, I would have the decision in my pen to make a decision about someone’s life.

It appears to be a law that you cannot have a deep sympathy with both man and nature.

Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap – let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in primers, spelling books, and in almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice.

We have the oldest written constitution still in force in the world, and it starts out with three words, ‚We, the people.‘

I opposed the Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. It should be repealed and I will vote for its repeal on the Senate floor. I will also oppose any proposal to amend the U.S. Constitution to ban gays and lesbians from marrying.

The law will never make a man free; it is men who have got to make the law free.

I think most defense attorneys know, to some extent, their clients are guilty.

Laws should be interpreted in a liberal sense so that their intention may be preserved.