Top 1200 Criminal Defense Quotes & Sayings

States and counties routinely bear the costs associated with incarcerating undocumented criminal aliens once they enter the criminal justice system.

Our nation was built and civilized by men and women who used guns in self-defense and in pursuit of peace. One wonders indeed, if the rising crime rate, isn't due as much as anything to the criminal's instinctive knowledge that the average victim no longer has means of self-protection.

To be an effective criminal defense counsel, an attorney must be prepared to be demanding, outrageous, irreverent, blasphemous, a rogue, a renegade, and a hated, isolated, and lonely person - few love a spokesman for the despised and the damned.

A criminal is twice a criminal when he adds hypocrisy to his crime.

I tell my students, if you ever become comfortable with your role as criminal defense lawyer, it's time to quit. It should be a constant source of discomfort, because you're dealing with incredible moral ambiguity, and you've been cast into a role which is not enviable.

As the name of the agency suggests, 'Department of Defense,' the defense refers to the United States of America - not the defense of South Korea, not the defense of Ukraine, not the defense of Syria or Germany.

One should never spurn a penitent criminal: in his despair he may become twice as much a criminal as before.

There is nothing anyone can do anyway. The public has no power. The government knows I'm not a criminal. The parole board knows I'm not a criminal. The judge knows I'm not a criminal.

If you want team play, you must stress defense. Defense makes players unselfish.

Tony Blair is a war criminal, and I think he should be tried as a war criminal. Then I see Bono and him as pals, and I'm going, 'I don't like that.' Do I think George Bush is a war criminal? Probably - but the difference between him and Tony Blair is that Blair is intelligent. So, he has no excuse.

I'm not a criminal but I've been fingerprinted like a criminal.

What postmodernism gives us instead is a multicultural defense for male violence - a defense for it wherever it is, which in effect is a pretty universal defense.

I remember walking on the street, and they would call me a stupid lil' punk, little criminal. Thank God I haven't become a criminal like they said.

I'm very realistic about who's coming to my defense. I am my defense.

The foundation stone of wealth accumulation is defense, and this defense should be anchored by budgeting and planning.

When we think of a criminal, we imagine someone with criminal motives. And when we look at Eichmann, he doesn't actually have any criminal motives. Not what is usually understood by "criminal motives." He wanted to go along with the rest. He wanted to say "we," and going-along-with-the-rest and wanting-to-say-we like this were quite enough to make the greatest of all crimes possible. The Hitlers, after all, really aren't the ones who are typical in this kind of situation--they'd be powerless without the support of others.

Local defense will always be important. But there is no local defense which alone will contain the mighty land power of the Communist world. Local defense must be reinforced by the further deterrent of massive retaliatory power.

There is no such thing as a criminal life. Life is life, and life is criminalized. No one ever, in the history of life, has chosen a criminal life. No one has ever said, 'I want to be a criminal.' No one ever has done that.

I do feel like the quarterback of the defense is pretty important, so not having that piece would put a damper on the defense.

I used to be someone who would not even tread on an ant. But this is a war for honor and self-defense. A 100 percent elimination policy (by Ankara of the Kurds) has forced me to defense and it has become a glorious defense of a people.

Our entire lives, we're inundated with media and messaging that tells us that to be incarcerated is to be criminal and to be criminal is to be a bad person.

A criminal has no caste and is only a criminal.

I had an affinity for criminal law because I came from that background. I understood it. A lot of lawyers of color understand the inequities of the system and become defense attorneys.

Everyone is a criminal! We are beset on all sides by antirevolutionary forces. Naturally, then, humans fall into three categories: the criminal, the not-yet-criminal, and the not-yet-caught.

Lawyers claim that their clients have been grossly mistreated, which is what criminal defense lawyers are paid to do.

The criminal defense attorney is misunderstood if not despised by most of society. It doesn't matter if we believe in our adversarial system and the ideal that everyone charged with a crime is entitled to a vigorous defense. Ideals give away to reality - defense lawyers working loopholes and angles to get their clients off.

The object of defense is preservation; and since it is easier to hold ground than to take it, defense is easier than attack. But defense has a passive purpose: preservation; and attack a positive one: conquest.... If defense is the stronger form of war, yet has a negative object, it follows that it should be used only so long as weakness compels, and be abandoned as soon as we are strong enough to pursue a positive object.

I did criminal defense work part-time, and that paid the bills for representing abused and neglected children... and for defending in juvenile court those kids the 'child protective system' had missed when it had the chance.

Let us hope our weapons are never needed - but do not forget what the common people of this nation knew when they demanded the Bill of Rights: An armed citizenry is the first defense, the best defense, and the final defense against tyranny.

[I have ] two boys. One, Nicholas, is a criminal defense attorney in Phoenix in which he - gets into - a lot of very controversial cases. He has sued Sheriff Arpaio, the famous sheriff who keeps people in tents, gives them green bologna and the like. My other son Tom is with Williams & Connolly in Washington, where he does intellectual property defamation cases.

As coaches we talk about two things: offense and defense. There is a third phase we neglect, which is more important. It's conversion from offense to defense and defense to offense.

Nobody's a criminal to himself. I never play a criminal like a bad person.

We want in the UK to have a good trading relationship with the EU. I think that's in our interests, I think that's in their interests as well. I want to continue to be cooperating on criminal justice, on security and defense, with the EU, I think that's important for the safety of Europe.

We should not burden a sitting president with civil suits, criminal investigations, or criminal prosecutions.

A criminal remains a criminal whether he uses a convict's suit or a monarch's crown.

We should distinguish between responsibility and guilt. Guilt only touches the ones who committed the crimes but the son of a criminal is not a criminal himself.

Our most important job in Congress is to provide for our national defense, and therefore, every year, Congress allocates funds and determines defense priorities in a bill known as the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA.

So swift, silent and furtive were his movements like those of a trained bloodhound picking out a scent, that I could not but think what a terrible criminal he would have made had he turned his energy and sagacity against the law instead of exerting them in its defense. -Dr. Watson, The Sign of the Four

Defense, for me, is where I really love to put work in most. Defense is, in my mind, what wins games.

Policemen and laws can never replace customs, traditions and moral values as a means for regulating human behavior. At best, the police and criminal justice system are the last desperate line of defense for a civilized society. Our increased reliance on laws to regulate behavior is a measure of how uncivilized we’ve become.

What was my great sin? To have revealed the private property of the bank - well if this is being a criminal, then maybe I'm a great criminal.

The allegations against Roy Moore are very serious. In the state of Missouri, they are criminal - these are criminal allegations.

The Green Hornet was a human superhero. And he didn't wear a clown costume. And he was a criminal - in the eyes of the law - and in the eyes of the criminal world.

My mental approach is totally different. My coach predicated everything on defense. He always talked about defense, defense, defense. I took it to heart that if you play defense, you can take the heart from an offensive player.

My anti-authoritarian instincts let me directly to criminal defense work.

Given the inefficiencies of what DC laughingly calls the 'criminal justice system,' I think we can safely assume that 95 percent of the black males in that city are semi-criminal or entirely criminal.

One is a criminal to some people and an artist to others. I can understand that. In a legal sense, I am a convicted criminal.

I have to say that every white-collar criminal defense lawyer knows when the chief financial officer turns state's evidence, everyone in the executive suite is in a lot of trouble because the chief financial officer knows exactly where the money is coming and going.

It takes brains. It's not like a forward, where you can get away with scoring and not play defense. On defense you have to be thinking.

The public has no power. The government knows I'm not a criminal. The parole board knows I'm not a criminal. The judge knows I'm not a criminal.

Biden is supposed to be the commander-in-chief, but he forgot the name of the Pentagon, the Department of Defense, and the Secretary of Defense.

Am I a criminal? The world knows I'm not a criminal. What are they trying to put me in jail for? You've lost common sense in this society because of religious fanaticism and dogma.

Even the lesser burdens of a criminal investigation - including preparing for questioning by criminal investigators - are time-consuming and distracting.

I sincerely believe that I have served a criminal. I led my soldiers in good conscience... but for a criminal government.

In self-defense and in defense of the innocent, cowardice is the only sin.

In existing criminology there are concepts: a criminal man, a criminal profession, a criminal society, a criminal sect, and a criminal tribe, but there is no concept of a criminal state, or a criminal government, or criminal legislation. Consequently what is often regarded as "political" activity is in fact a criminal activity.

One of the people that wrote a forward to my book is Gerry Spence, whom I admire. Gerry is a friend of mine, and Gerry's perhaps the leading criminal defense attorney in the country.

The defense of marriage is the defense of freedom. Neither of which is obsolete.

If you do not want the State to act like a criminal, you must disarm it as you would a criminal; you must keep it weak. The State will always be criminal in proportion to its strength; a weak State will always be as criminal as it can be, or dare be, but if it is kept down to the proper limit of weakness - which, by the way, is a vast deal lower limit than people are led to believe - its criminality may be safely got on with.

The Orlando terrorist is an example of someone who was in the sights of law enforcement but never crossed the threshold from pre-criminal to criminal behavior and, thus, was not tracked adequately before this horrific act.