Top 100 A Jury Quotes
#1. No one can just file a charge and go directly to a jury trial. That just cannot happen.
Robert P. McCulloch
#2. A jury of inquest was impaneled, and after due deliberation and inquiry they returned the inevitable American verdict which has been so familiar to our ears all the days of our lives - "NOBODY TO BLAME.
Mark Twain
#3. A jury found former Enron sleezeballs Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling guilty of fraud and conspiracy. Ken Lay? That's not a good name to have when you're going to prison. And Kenny Boy ain't too good either ... I guess in prison they'll have done to them what they did to the stockholders.
Jay Leno
#4. Suppose, for instance, that the President of the United States has committed the crime of high treason; the House of Representatives impeaches him, and the Senate degrades him; he must then be tried by a jury, which alone can deprive him of his liberty or his life.
Alexis De Tocqueville
#5. In the year 399 B.C.[E.] he was accused of "introducing new gods and corrupting the youth," as well as not believing in the accepted gods. With a slender majority, a jury of five hundred found him guilty.
Jostein Gaarder
#6. All I did in Chicago was to exercise my legal right to speak on my own behalf and I was given four years in jail as a result. But I think the most serious injustice perpetrated by the court system in America is the inability of a black man to get a jury of his peers.
Bobby Seale
#7. I can't describe the feeling I got the first time I won a jury award for an injured person.
Joe Jamail
#8. It would be enough for me to have the system of a jury of twelve versus the system of one judge as a basis for preferring the U.S. to the Soviet Union. I would prefer the country you can leave to the country you cannot.
Joseph Brodsky
#9. I put my hand down below the table to check my zipper. You have to stand before a jury only once with your fly open and it will never happen again
Michael Connelly
#10. Global warming ... may be a plaintiff lawyer's dream. And it's interesting, in a perverse way, to imagine how a jury in 2050 might react to some of the recent industry-backed studies minimizing the dangers of global warming. I suspect future jurors will not be amused.
David Ignatius
#11. But for their right to judge of the law, and the justice of the law, juries would be no protection to an accused person, even as to matters of fact; for, if the government can dictate to a jury any law whatever, in a criminal case, it can certainly dictate to them the laws of evidence.
Lysander Spooner
#12. Borkin: Ladies and gentlemen, why are you so glum? Sitting there like a jury after it's been sworn in! ... Let's think up something. What would you like? Forfeits, tug of war, catch, dancing, fireworks?
Anton Chekhov
#13. Every year there's a jury at the Cannes Film Festival. Getting on the jury is very competitive in France. Not because the French love cinema, but because they love to judge.
Craig Ferguson
#14. I always wait until a jury has spoken before I anticipate what they will do.
Janet Reno
#15. [When asked: "If women voted, would they not have to sit on juries?":] Many women would be glad of a chance to sit on anything. There are women who stand up and wash six days in the week at 75 cents a day who would like to take a vacation and sit on a jury at $1.50.
Anna Howard Shaw
#16. If a jury have not the right to judge between the government and those who disobey its laws, and resist its oppressions, the government is absolute, and the people, legally speaking, are slaves.
Lysander Spooner
#17. The one place where a man ought to get a square deal is in a court-room, be heany colour of the rainbow, but people have way to carrying their resentments right into a jury box.
Harper Lee
#18. There was no surer way to lose the confidence of an audience, or a jury, than by letting them think faster than yourself, so that they became aware of what you were going to say before you said it.
Arthur Hailey
#19. I was married by a judge. I should have asked for a jury.
Groucho Marx
#20. It is surely easier to confess a murder over a cup of coffee than in front of a jury.
Friedrich Durrenmatt
#21. Who does not delight in oratory? How we gather to hear even an ordinary speaker! How often is a jury swayed and controlled by the appeals of counsel!
David Josiah Brewer
#22. Serving on a jury forces a man to make up his mind and declare himself about something. Men don't like to do that. Sometimes it's unpleasant.
Harper Lee
#23. I would not be convicted by a jury of my peers, still crazy after all these years.
Paul Simon
#24. If a jury of your peers finds you not guilty, I will reinstate you back into baseball.
Kenesaw Mountain Landis
#25. In the courtroom, it's where a lawyer really becomes an actor. There's a very fine line between delivering a monologue in a play and delivering a monologue to a jury. I've always felt that way - I've been in a lot of courtrooms. The best lawyers are really theatrical.
Woody Harrelson
#26. Atticus took his career in his hands, made good use of a careless indictment, took his stand before a jury, and accomplished what was never before or afterwards done in Maycomb County: he won an acquittal for a colored boy on a rape charge. The chief witness for the prosecution was a white girl.
Harper Lee
#27. Ways may someday be developed by which the government, without removing papers from secret drawers, can reproduce them in court, and by which it will be enabled to expose to a jury the most intimate occurrences of the home.
Louis D. Brandeis
#28. Freedom of discussion is in England little else than the right to write or say anything which a jury of twelve shopkeepers think it expedient should be said or written.
A. V. Dicey
#29. Usually when attorneys are assembling a jury, they're just looking for sheep that are easily impressed.
Johnny Kelly
#30. Sometimes you had a better shot with a jury, that body of ones "peers" who make decisions with their emotional brains; especially if your client was guilty.
Kenneth Eade
#31. I served on a jury recently. We got hung; we were 6 vs 6.
Mike Bove
#32. God can judge me, I don't need a jury. Nothing standing in my way, like nothing's my security.
Lil' Wayne
#33. A jury's vote's supposed to be secret. Serving on a jury forces a man to make up his mind and declare himself about something. Men don't like to do that. Sometimes it's unpleasant." "Tom's
Harper Lee
#34. Being attractive matters everywhere - getting jobs, getting laid, and yes, getting acquitted by a jury of your peers. No one can resist a pretty face. As long as it's not too pretty. Back
Marcia Clark
#35. Those who deny the right of a jury to protect an individual in resisting an unjust law of the government, deny him all defence whatsoever against oppression.
Lysander Spooner
#36. I view myself primarily as a trial lawyer who happens to be writing, as opposed to a writer who happens to be a trial lawyer, so the audience is like a jury to me.
Vincent Bugliosi
#37. I don't care whether the person is guilty or not guilty. It's not my business to establish guilt or innocence. It's a court of law that does that and a jury does that, but not me.
Werner Herzog
#38. No court presumes to tell a jury that they are to try a capital case with the same indifference and unconcern as to consequences, that they would a case where the results of their decision would be less important.
Lysander Spooner
#39. Only a very foolish lawyer will dare guess the outcome of a jury trial.
Jerome Frank
#40. A jury verdict is just a guess - a well-intentioned guess, generally, but you simply cannot tell fact from fiction by taking a vote.
William Landay
#42. If I had it to do again, I would less often judge myself and more often ask for a jury.
Robert Breault
#44. A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.
Robert Frost
#45. A jury too often has at least one member more ready to hang the panel than to hang the traitor.
Abraham Lincoln
#46. As a trial lawyer in front of a jury and an author of true-crime books, credibility has always meant everything to me. My only master and my only mistress are the facts and objectivity. I have no others.
Vincent Bugliosi
#47. Frank, this case is a publicity stunt and a shakedown. My clients did nothing illegal, and you and I both know I'll have no problem proving that to a jury. So there's no reason to discuss your ridiculous settlement offer any further. Call me when somebody sees a penis.
Julie James
#48. A jury is composed of twelve men of average ignorance.
Herbert Spencer
#49. Evolution is a tinkerer, an ad-hocker, and a jury-rigger. It works with what it has on hand, not with what it has in mind. Some of its inventions prove elegant, while in others you can see the seams and dried glue.
Natalie Angier
#50. In our system, we leave questions of fact to a jury. But to render a verdict, a jury must know the law. For this, we rely upon jury instructions. Instructions are supposed to translate the law into lay terms that the jury can apply to the facts as they determine them.
Alafair Burke
#51. A jury could very well conclude that this is a case of buyer's remorse.
Ken Buck
#52. In a sinful world, no community can exist for long where nobody is ever held accountable: no teacher would grade a student's performance; no citizen would sit on a jury or call a failed leader to account.
Lewis B. Smedes
#53. People who are jerks don't get to decide whether they're jerks. It's left up to a jury of their peers.
Rainbow Rowell
#54. A jury is more apt to be unbiased and independent than a court, but they very seldom stand up against strong public clamor. Judges naturally believe the defendant is guilty.
Clarence Darrow
#55. You're not being tried by common sense," Horace said. "You're being tried by a jury.
William Faulkner
#56. We operate under a jury system in this country, and as much as we complain about it, we have to admit that we know of no better system, except possibly flipping a coin.
Dave Barry
#57. Instead of accepting plea bargains, large numbers of people collectively demand their constitutional right to a jury of their peers.
Daniel Hunter
#58. It takes courage to sit on a jury. How many of us want to decide the fate of another person's life or freedom? How many of us want to hold that kind of power in our hands?
Regina Brett
#59. The verdict of a jury is the a priori opinion of that juror who smokes the worst cigars.
H.L. Mencken
#60. Forcible sodomy and illegal entry, you put them both down and you get a jury confused. They figure it's two ways of saying the same thing.
Lawrence Block
#61. Nullification is not a 'defense' recognized by law, but rather a mechanism that permits a jury, as community conscience, to disregard the strict requirements of law where it finds that those requirements cannot justly be applied in a particular case.
David L. Bazelon
#62. I spent my time trying to understand grand jury procedure - a topic about which I never before had the slightest interest.
Donella Meadows
#63. Dearest Amabot,
If you only had a heart to absorb our hatred...
Thanks for nothing, you jury-rigged rust bucket.
The gorgeous messiness of flesh and blood with prevail!
Brad Stone
#64. Fine, you do that, and you tell them that at the very first opportunity, I'm coming down there and killing all of them. Mass murder. And after they're all dead, I'm going to kick the bodies around, dance on top of them, and sing a happy song. No jury will convict me.
Nora Roberts
#65. Normally a grand jury will indict a ham sandwich if a prosecutor asks it to.
Chuck Robb
#66. The jury was a cynical, unsophisticated bunch, seemingly incapable of empathy, eager to embrace defense bromides however haphazardly delivered.
David Turner
#67. The trial by jury is a trial by 'the country,' in contradistinction to a trial by the government. The jurors are drawn by lot from the mass of the people, for the very purpose of having all classes of minds and feelings, that prevail among the people at large, represented in the jury.
Lysander Spooner
#68. I have a big belief that whatever your passion is in life, pursue it to the fullest and try to be the best at it.
Myles Jury
#69. We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world and it's efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who don't know anything and can't read-
Mark Twain
#70. The grand jury's job is not to weigh the evidence from both sides; it is only to decide whether there is enough evidence on one side to bring a person to trial.
Donella Meadows
#71. Women should not be allowed on juries where the accused is a stud.
Rush Limbaugh
#72. The police were also ready with more formidable tools of intimidation. The office also assigned a veteran homicide prosecutor to oversee the investigation. All this activity sent a signal to Condit. If he didn't play ball, he might find himself called to testify before a grand jury under oath.
Wolf Blitzer
#73. I certainly believe it's over for the jury system, but we won't admit it for a while.
Joseph Wambaugh
#74. I've resisted pronouncing a sentence before guilt is found. I still have this old-fashioned notion that even with people like Osama, who is very likely to be found guilty, we should do our best not to, in positions of executive power, not to prejudge jury trials.
Howard Dean
#75. You are the determining factor in your future. Don't let others be your judge and jury with their pity and negative thoughts or feeling. Know that you are here for a reason. Recognize, develop, and use the resources you do have. Others see the surface; you know your heart.
Zig Ziglar
#76. Ideally a hug should be done long and hard enough to fit all the broken pieces together.
Jury Nel
#77. The idea that trials are a search for the truth is just a myth. Trials are a search for that which the jury will believe is the truth.
David Rosenfelt
#78. The 5th Amendment guarantees that defendants can't face 'double jeopardy,' which means the government can't prosecute a person a second time for the same crime if the jury returns a verdict. Only if the jury doesn't reach a decision can prosecutors elect to retry the case.
Robert Shapiro
#79. To escape jury duty in England, wear a bowler hat and carry a copy of the Daily telegraph.
John Mortimer
#81. No jury in this part of the world's going to say, "We think you're guilty, but not very," on a charge like that. It was either straight acquittal or nothing.
Harper Lee
#82. You had to have a unanimous jury verdict, and one percent of contributory negligence barred all recovery. It was so satisfying to realize I could do it. And I'll tell you what motivated me: competitiveness. I was betting on me. That's what a contingent-fee lawyer does.
Joe Jamail
#83. We can beat our swords into plowshares, and we can beat our plowshares into swords, but as far as computers go, a hammer can only change the shape of the junk, not it's function.
Jury Nel
#84. It isn't actually a question of guilt or innocence, is it? It's a matter of what the jury believes, once we've told them what evidence there is on either side. Given the proper evidence, we could probably convict God. Without it, Lucifer himself would walk free!
Charles Todd
#85. Welcome to a shifter's world. Rules existed to keep them in line and to keep their existence secret. Break them and there was no lengthy trial, no jury. Just swift and final justice.
Eve Langlais
#86. There were eleven votes for "guilty." It's not easy for me to raise my hand and send a boy off to die without talking about it first.
Reginald Rose
#87. During my jury selection process, we went through over 360 jurors. It took six months, all New York residents. Of the 360 jurors, over half of them had been mugged one time. Quite a number of them, maybe 30 40, 50, had been mugged twice.
Bernhard Goetz
#88. Bill Clinton was impeached primarily for criminal conduct: lying under oath and misleading a federal grand jury about his affair with Monica Lewinsky. Nixon would have been impeached for a wide array of criminal acts, as well as abuses of power.
Jonathan Turley
#89. In July 1958, Cristoforo Rubino became another informer to fall before testifying against Mafia drug traffickers. A week before he was to testify before a grand jury investigating Vito Genovese and other traffickers, Rubino was shot dead on a Brooklyn sidewalk.98
C. Alexander Hortis
#90. A man's rights rest in three boxes: the ballot box, the jury box, and the cartridge box.
Frederick Douglass
#91. Trial by jury is the palladium of our liberties. I do not know what a palladium is, but I am sure it is a good thing!
Mark Twain
#92. But in the absence of eye-witness there's always a doubt, sometimes only the shadow of a doubt. The law says 'reasonable doubt', but I think a defendant's entitled to the shadow of doubt. There's always the possibility, no matter how improbable, that he's innocent.
Harper Lee
#93. It's unnecessary to make that, you know, strong of a statement. Let the facts, let the case, you know, and the evidence there speak for itself. You want to be careful that you're not poisoning the jury pool.
Kimberly Guilfoyle
#94. I was a fat kid who didn't discover the joys of active play at the time of life when we're supposed to be imprinted with a love of movement. That means that I'd rather be called for jury duty than go to the gym, but I go anyway.
Victoria Moran
#95. A federal grand jury is investigating allegations that David Copperfield raped, assaulted and threatened a woman he took to his private island in the Bahamas in July. What happened to the good old days when a guy would just saw you in half?
Chelsea Handler
#96. I had only been a citizen for two weeks when I received a summons to appear for jury duty!
Alex Trebek
#97. Never saw a point in showing up for jury duty. I already know I'm going to vote guilty." Ari's mouth made a tiny O, and she put her hand to her heart. "What about justice?"
"It is justice. Whoever they are, they're guilty of making me show up for jury duty.
J.C. Nelson
#98. Life is a tragedy filled with suffering and despair and yet some people do manage to avoid jury duty.
Woody Allen
#99. You don't have to be a college graduate to murder someone." "Thank you for making the jury aware of that, Lieutenant. I'm sure they had no idea.
David Rosenfelt
#100. Trial by jury must be preserved. It is the best system ever invented for a free people in the world's history.
John Henry Wigmore
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