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

Justice Scalia and I served together on the D.C. Circuit. So his votes are not surprising to me. What I like about him is that he’s very funny and very smart.

We shouldn’t have to be burdened with all the technicalities that come up from time to time with shrewd, smart lawyers interpreting what the laws or what the Constitution may or may not say.

You don’t send people to prison on the basis of what other people imagine, or on the basis of media sound bites like ‚shooting an unarmed child,‘ when that ‚child‘ was beating him bloody.

‚Do you spell it with a ‚V‘ or a ‚W‘?‘ inquired the judge. ‚That depends upon the taste and fancy of the speller, my Lord‘.

The strictest law sometimes becomes the severest injustice.

A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.

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

Law is mind without reason.

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

Laws, like houses, lean on one another.

The best interpreter of the law is custom.

Due process should matter.

How accurately can the law fix the crime? There has to be a mechanism for very fast action. The law is like this: catch them and punish them.

The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.

Justice is expensive in America. There are no Free Passes… You might want to remember this, the next time you get careless and blow off a few Parking Tickets. They will come back to haunt you the next time you see a Cop car in your rear-view mirror.

Whoever has witnessed another’s ideal becomes his inexorable judge and as it were his evil conscience.

Free speech has been used by the Supreme Court to give immense power to the wealthiest members of our society.

It’s hard not to have a big year at the Supreme Court.

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

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

Judge: a law student who marks his own examination-papers.

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.

Nobody is above the law. Imagine if there allegations against Modi and he is the Prime Minister. Should the case not be pursued just because he has become the PM. It should not be so that it should be stopped. I am not above the law.

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.

The place of justice is a hallowed place.

You’re innocent until proven guilty.

If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.

A precedent embalms a principle.

Law is always better than war.

Never stir up litigation. A worse man can scarcely be found than one who does this.

And whether you’re an honest man, or whether you’re a thief, depends on whose solicitor has given me my brief.

The one great principle of English law is to make business for itself.

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.

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

Law, without force, is impotent.

Whenever you put a man on the Supreme Court he ceases to be your friend.

There is no person in this room whose basic rights are not involved in any successful defiance to the carrying out of court orders.

The law is reason, free from passion.

Our chief justices have probably had more profound and lasting influence on their times and on the direction of the nation than most presidents.

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

I hope that a move toward clemency with Judge Afiuni would be a step towards the importance of maintaining a properly functioning justice system.

Judges ought to be more leaned than witty, more reverent than plausible, and more advised than confident. Above all things, integrity is their portion and proper virtue.

No law or ordinance is mightier than understanding.

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.

When police or prosecutors conceal significant exculpatory or impeaching material, we hold, it is ordinarily incumbent on the state to set the record straight.

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 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.

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.

I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury.

Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.

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

Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.

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

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

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

More law, less justice.

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

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

The 14th Amendment was recognized right away to be problematic. The concept of person was both too narrow and too broad, and the courts went to work to overcome both of those flaws.

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