Quotes about prosecution

A collection of quotes on the topic of prosecution, people, doing, law.

Quotes about prosecution

“If I were ever prosecuted for my religion, I truly hope there would be enough evidence to convict me.”

John Wooden (1910–2010) American basketball coach

Source: Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court

“It is unthinkable in the twentieth century to fail to distinguish between what constitutes an abominable atrocity that must be prosecuted and what constitutes that "past" which "ought not to be stirred up.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008) Russian writer

Source: The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956

Past

“Do women need sovereignty—not only over their own bodies as currently understood in the United States…; but control of a boundary further away from their bodies, a defended boundary? Do women need land and an army…; or a feminist government in exile…? Or is it simpler: the bed belongs to the woman; the house belongs to the woman; any land belongs to the woman; if a male intimate is violent he is removed from the place where she has the superior and inviolate claim, arrested, denied parole, and prosecuted….. Could women "set a high price on our blood"? Could women set any price on our blood? Could women manage self-defense if not retaliation? Would self-defense be enough? Could women execute men who raped or beat or tortured women?…. [¶]…. Could the acts of women in behalf of women … have a code of honor woman-to-woman that weakens the male-dominant demands of nationalism or race-pride or ethnic pride? Could women commit treason to the men of their own group: put women first, even the putative enemy women? Do women have enough militancy and self-respect to see themselves as the central makers of legal codes, ethics, honor codes, and culture?”

Andrea Dworkin book Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel, and Women's Liberation

Source: Scapegoat: The Jews, Israel, and Women's Liberation (2000), p. 246.

Women, Men, Housing

“Until the United States prosecutes its own leaders, it is guilty of grave breaches of the Geneva Convention, that means war crimes.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Talk titled "On West Asia" at UC Berkeley, March 21, 2002 http://www.chomsky.info/talks/20020321.htm. Quotes 2000s, 2002 Context: [Israel's military occupation is] in gross violation of international law and has been from the outset. And that much, at least, is fully recognized, even by the United States, which has overwhelming and, as I said, unilateral responsibility for these crimes. So George Bush No. 1, when he was the U. N. ambassador, back in 1971, he officially reiterated Washington's condemnation of Israel's actions in the occupied territories. He happened to be referring specifically to occupied Jerusalem. In his words, actions in violation of the provisions of international law governing the obligations of an occupying power, namely Israel. He criticized Israel's failure "to acknowledge its obligations under the Fourth Geneva Convention as well as its actions which are contrary to the letter and spirit of this Convention." [... ] However, by that time, late 1971, a divergence was developing, between official policy and practice. The fact of the matter is that by then, by late 1971, the United States was already providing the means to implement the violations that Ambassador Bush deplored. [... ] on December 5th [2001], there had been an important international conference, called in Switzerland, on the 4th Geneva Convention. Switzerland is the state that's responsible for monitoring and controlling the implementation of them. The European Union all attended, even Britain, which is virtually a U. S. attack dog these days. They attended. A hundred and fourteen countries all together, the parties to the Geneva Convention. They had an official declaration, which condemned the settlements in the occupied territories as illegal, urged Israel to end its breaches of the Geneva Convention, some "grave breaches," including willful killing, torture, unlawful deportation, unlawful depriving of the rights of fair and regular trial, extensive destruction and appropriation of property not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly. Grave breaches of the Geneva Convention, that's a serious term, that means serious war crimes. The United States is one of the high contracting parties to the Geneva Convention, therefore it is obligated, by its domestic law and highest commitments, to prosecute the perpetrators of grave breaches of the conventions. That includes its own leaders. Until the United States prosecutes its own leaders, it is guilty of grave breaches of the Geneva Convention, that means war crimes. And it's worth remembering the context. It is not any old convention. These are the conventions established to criminalize the practices of the Nazis, right after the Second World War. What was the U. S. reaction to the meeting in Geneva? The U. S. boycotted the meeting... and that has the usual consequence, it means the meeting is null and void, silence in the media.

War

“Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.
BY ORDER OF THE AUTHOR.”

Mark Twain book Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Notice
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)
Source: The Adventures of Huck Finn

Motivation, Personality

“Whenever you see a board up with "Trespassers will be prosecuted," trespass at once.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

“On May 27, the New York Times published one of the most incredible sentences I’ve ever seen. They ran an article about the Nixon-Kissinger interchanges. Kissinger fought very hard through the courts to try to prevent it, but the courts permitted it. You read through it, and you see the following statement embedded in it. Nixon at one point informs Kissinger, his right-hand Eichmann, that he wanted bombing of Cambodia. And Kissinger loyally transmits the order to the Pentagon to carry out "a massive bombing campaign in Cambodia. Anything that flies on anything that moves." That is the most explicit call for what we call genocide when other people do it that I’ve ever seen in the historical record. Right at this moment there is a prosecution of Milošević going on in the international tribunal, and the prosecutors are kind of hampered because they can’t find direct orders, or a direct connection even, linking Milošević to any atrocities on the ground. Suppose they found a statement like this. Suppose a document came out from Milošević saying, "Reduce Kosovo to rubble. Anything that flies on anything that moves."”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

They would be overjoyed. The trial would be over. He would be sent away for multiple life sentences - if it was a U.S. trial, immediately the electric chair. Interview by David Barsamian on Alternative Radio, June 11, 2004 http://www.isreview.org/issues/37/chomsky.shtml Quotes 2000s, 2004

Life, People, Time, Reading

“Our nation is unique. We grew out of a desire to worship God in a certain way; we grew from a number of other nations who were being prosecuted because of their faith. We have a wonderful culture, a wonderful, vibrant language. I want my people to be proud of who they are again.”

Eugène Terre'Blanche (1941–2010) South African police officer, farmer, political activist, white supremacist

Interview by Antoinette Keyser http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=249083&area=/insight/insight__national/, (25 August 2005).

God, People, Faith, Way

“About the year 1767, one Hargrave, of Blackburn, in, and obtained a patent for his engine; but he did not even there long continue in the peaceable possession. His patent right was invaded, and he found it necessary to commence a prosecution; an association was soon formed against him; and, being unable to contend against the united power of a body of men, he was obliged to give up the unjust and unequal contest. His invention was cruelly wrested from him; and he died in obscurity, and great distress.”

Richard Arkwright (1732–1792) textile entrepreneur; developer of the cotton mill

Source: The Case of Mr. Richard Arkwright and Co., 1781, p. 22-23

Men

“I have been a consistent and strong opponent of this war. I have also tried to act responsibly in that opposition to ensure that, having made the decision to go into Iraq, we provide our troops, who perform valiantly, the support they need to complete their mission. I have also stated publicly that I think we have both strategic interests and humanitarian responsibilities in ensuring that Iraq is as stable as possible under the circumstances. Finally, I said publicly that it is my preference not to micromanage the Commander-in-Chief in the prosecution of war. Ultimately, I do not believe that is the ideal role for Congress to play. But at a certain point, we have to draw a line. At a certain point, the American people have to have some confidence that we are not simply going down this blind alley in perpetuity.
When it comes to the war in Iraq, the time for promises and assurances, for waiting and patience is over. Too many lives have been lost and too many billions have been spent for us to trust the President on another tried-and-failed policy, opposed by generals and experts, opposed by Democrats and Republicans, opposed by Americans and even the Iraqis themselves. It is time to change our policy. It is time to give Iraqis their country back, and it is time to refocus America's effort on the wider struggle against terror yet to be won.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Floor Statement on President's Decision to Increase Troops in Iraq (19 January 2007)
2007

War, People, Confidence, Support

“I have no special regard for Satan; but, I can at least claim that I have no prejudice against him. It may even be that I lean a little his way, on account of his not having a fair show. All religions issue bibles against him, and say the most injurious things about him, but we never hear his side. We have none but the evidence for the prosecution, and yet we have rendered the verdict. To my mind, this is irregular. It is un-English, it is un-American; it is French.”

Mark Twain book Concerning the Jews

Concerning the Jews (Harper's Magazine, Sept. 1899)

Religion, Way

“One of the great things about America is that individual citizens and groups of citizens can petition their government, can protest, can speak truth to power. And that is sometimes messy and controversial. But because of that ability to protest and engage in free speech, America, over time, has gotten better. We've all benefited from that.

The abolition movement was contentious. The effort for women to get the right to vote was contentious and messy. There were times when activists might have engaged in rhetoric that was overheated and occasionally counterproductive. But the point was to raise issues so that we, as a society, could grapple with it. The same was true with the Civil Rights Movement, the union movement, the environmental movement, the anti-war movement during Vietnam. And I think what you're seeing now is part of that longstanding tradition.

What I would say is this -- that whenever those of us who are concerned about fairness in the criminal justice system attack police officers, you are doing a disservice to the cause. First of all, any violence directed at police officers is a reprehensible crime and needs to be prosecuted. But even rhetorically, if we paint police in broad brush, without recognizing that the vast majority of police officers are doing a really good job and are trying to protect people and do so fairly and without racial bias, if our rhetoric does not recognize that, then we're going to lose allies in the reform cause.

Now, in a movement like Black Lives Matter, there's always going to be some folks who say things that are stupid, or imprudent, or overgeneralized, or harsh. And I don't think that you can hold well-meaning activists who are doing the right thing and peacefully protesting responsible for everything that is uttered at a protest site.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Remarks by President Obama and Prime Minister Rajoy of Spain After Bilateral Meeting https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/07/10/remarks-president-obama-and-prime-minister-rajoy-spain-after-bilateral (10 July 2016) 2016

Women, War, People, Truth

“And in regard to the present matter, if the present matters: I do not belong to the masters. I don't wash my hands of it, but I am not a judge, nor a witness for the prosecution, nor an executioner. I do not torture, interrogate, or suffer interrogation.”

Octavio Paz (1914–1998) Mexican writer laureated with the 1990 Nobel Prize for Literature

The Clerk's Vision (1949)
Context: The world stretches out before me, the vast world of the big, the little, and the medium. Universe of kings and presidents and jailors, of mandarins and pariahs and liberators and liberated, of judges and witnesses and the condemned: stars of the first, second, third and nth magnitudes, planets, comets, bodies errant and eccentric or routine and domesticated by the laws of gravity, the subtle laws of falling, all keeping step, all turning slowly or rapidly around a void. Where they claim the central sun lies, the solar being, the hot beam made out of every human gaze, there is nothing but a hole and less than a hole: the eye of a dead fish, the giddy cavity of the eye that falls into itself and looks at itself without seeing. There is nothing with which to fill the hollow center of the whirlwind. The springs are smashed, the foundations collapsed, the visible or invisible bonds that joined one star to another, one body to another, one man to another, are nothing but a tangle of wires and thorns, a jungle of claws and teeth that twist us and chew us and spit us out and chew us again. No one hangs himself by the rope of a physical law. The equations fall tirelessly into themselves.
And in regard to the present matter, if the present matters: I do not belong to the masters. I don't wash my hands of it, but I am not a judge, nor a witness for the prosecution, nor an executioner. I do not torture, interrogate, or suffer interrogation. I do not loudly plead for leniency, nor wish to save myself or anyone else. And for all that I don't do and for all that they do to us, I neither ask forgiveness nor forgive. Their piety is as abject as their justice. Am I innocent? I'm guilty. Am I guilty? I'm innocent. (I'm innocent when I'm guilty, guilty when I'm innocent. I'm guilty when … but that is another song. Another song? It's all the same song.) Guilty innocent, innocent guilty, the fact is I quit.

Suffering

“Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

Signing statement on the ratification of the United Nations Convention on Torture http://deadconfederates.com/2014/12/10/prosecute-them/ (1984) 1980s, First term of office (1981–1985) Context: The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of Convention. It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today. The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called "universal jurisdiction." Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution.

Country

“It’s important that not only low-level corruption is punished, but folks at the top, if they are taking from the people, that has to be addressed as well. But it's not something that is just fixed by laws, or that any one person can fix. It requires a commitment by the entire nation -- leaders and citizens -- to change habits and to change culture. […] People who break the law and violate the public trust need to be prosecuted.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2015, Remarks to the Kenyan People (July 2015)
Context: Because corruption holds back every aspect of economic and civil life. It’s an anchor that weighs you down and prevents you from achieving what you could. If you need to pay a bribe and hire somebody’s brother -- who’s not very good and doesn’t come to work -- in order to start a business, well, that’s going to create less jobs for everybody. If electricity is going to one neighborhood because they’re well-connected, and not another neighborhood, that’s going to limit development of the country as a whole. If someone in public office is taking a cut that they don't deserve, that’s taking away from those who are paying their fair share. So this is not just about changing one law -- although it's important to have laws on the books that are actually being enforced. It’s important that not only low-level corruption is punished, but folks at the top, if they are taking from the people, that has to be addressed as well. But it's not something that is just fixed by laws, or that any one person can fix. It requires a commitment by the entire nation -- leaders and citizens -- to change habits and to change culture. [... ] People who break the law and violate the public trust need to be prosecuted. NGOs have to be allowed to operate who shine a spotlight on what needs to change. And ordinary people have to stand up and say, enough is enough.

People, Law, Change, Personality

“It should not be Democratic or Republican, it should not be a partisan issue to say that we do not pressure the attorney general or the FBI to use the criminal justice system as a cudgel to punish our political opponents. Or to explicitly call on the attorney general to protect members of our own party from prosecution because an election happens to be coming up. I’m not making that up. That’s not hypothetical. It shouldn’t be Democratic or Republican to say that we don’t threaten the freedom of the press because they say things or publish stories we don’t like. I complained plenty about Fox News but you never heard me threaten to shut them down, or call them enemies of the people. It shouldn’t be Democratic or Republican to say we don’t target certain groups of people based on what they look like or how they pray. We are Americans. We’re supposed to stand up to bullies. Not follow them. We’re supposed to stand up to discrimination. And we’re sure as heck supposed to stand up, clearly and unequivocally, to Nazi sympathizers. How hard can that be? Saying that Nazis are bad. I’ll be honest, sometimes I get into arguments with progressive friends about what the current political movement requires. There are well-meaning folks passionate about social justice, who think things have gotten so bad, the lines have been so starkly drawn, that we have to fight fire with fire, we have to do the same things to the Republicans that they do to us, adopt their tactics, say whatever works, make up stuff about the other side. I don’t agree with that.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2018, Speech at the University of Illinoise Speech (2018)

Justice, Freedom, Bad luck, People

“Now, this research work about the science of God has to be prosecuted for several births after births… God realization, it is very easy, but at the same time, it is very difficult. Easy for them who accept it as truth, and those who are trying to understand by dint of his knowledge, advancement of knowledge, he has to create his faith after he finishes his research work. Then that takes many, many births.”

A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada (1896–1977) Indian guru

Lecture on Bhagavad-gita, Chapter 7, verse 18; New York; http://prabhupadabooks.com/classes/bg/7/18/new_york/october/12/1966?d=1 (12 October 1966)

God, Faith, Time, Understanding

“To say that it ‘unconstitutional’ to outlaw and prosecute such a movement is merely to admit that democracies can devise no legal means to protect themselves.”

Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster

Source: "Let the Record Speak" 1939, “The Truth about Communism” https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015051180423&view=1up&seq=5 (1948), p. 10

Democracy

“Curious things, habits. People themselves never knew they had them.

[Witness for the Prosecution, also published in The Hound of Death and Other Stories. ]”

Agatha Christie book The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories

Source: The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories

Death, People

“We need more co-ordinated efforts to drive this out of our society. More prosecutions. No more turning a blind eye on the false basis of cultural sensitivities.”

David Cameron (1966) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

2010s, 2015, Speech on (20 July 2015)

Effort, Falseness

“To be perfectly ignorant in all the Terms of them is only tolerable in those, who think their Tongues of as little Use to them, as generally their Understandings are. Those whom Necessity has obliged to get their Bread by Manual Industry, where some Degree of Art is required to go along with it, and who have had some Insight into these Studies, have very often found Advantages from them sufficient to reward the Pains they were at in acquiring them. And whatever may have been imputed (how justly I'm not now to determine) to some other Studies, under the Notion of Insignificancy and Loss of Time; yet these, I believe, never caused Repentance in any, except it was for their Remissness in the Prosecution of them. And though Plato's Censure, that those who did not understand the 117 Prop. of the 10th Element, ought not to be ranked among Rational Creatures, wax unreasonable and unjust: Yet to give a Man the Character of Universal Learning that is destitute of a competent Knowledge in the Mathematics, is no less so.”

Jacques Ozanam (1640–1718) French mathematician

Preface
A Mathematical Dictionary: Or; A Compendious Explication of All Mathematical Terms, 1702

Pain, Art, Mathematics, Understanding

“The idea of white privilege is absolutely reprehensible. And it's not because white people aren't privileged. We have all sorts of privileges, and most people have privileges of all sorts, and you should be grateful for your privileges and work to deserve them. But the idea that you can target an ethnic group with a collective crime, regardless of the specific innocence or guilt of the constituent elements of that group - there is absolutely nothing that's more racist than that. It's absolutely abhorrent. If you really want to know more about that sort of thing, you should read about the Kulaks in the Soviet Union in the 1920's. They were farmers who were very productive. They were the most productive element of the agricultural strata in Russia. And they were virtually all killed, raped, and robbed by the collectivists who insisted that because they showed signs of wealth, they were criminals and robbers. One of the consequences of the prosecution of the Kulaks was the death of six million Ukrainians from a famine in the 1930's. The idea of collectively held guilt at the level of the individual as a legal or philosophical principle is dangerous. It's precisely this sort of danger that people who are really looking for trouble would push. Just a cursory glance at 20th century history should teach anyone who wants to know exactly how unacceptable that is.”

Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology

Concepts

Death, People, History, Idea

“How the hell did they think this was going to be something else than EPIC FAIL for the prosecution? We’re winning so hard.”

Peter Sunde (1978) Swedish activist and computer expert

February 2009 Copyright Infringement Trial http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-trial-first-day-in-court/

Hell, Thinking

“I call on Governments worldwide to put an end to multiple campaigns of defamation, mobbing and even prosecution of whistleblowers like Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, the Luxleakers Antoine Deltour and Raphael Halet and the tax corruption leaker Rafi Rotem, who have acted in good faith and who have given meaning to article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights on freedom of expression. Whistleblowers who are serving prison sentence in many countries should be pardoned.”

Alfred de Zayas (1947) American United Nations official

“It is time to recognize the contribution of whistleblowers” – UN expert welcomes commutation of Manning’s sentence
2017, Whistleblowers

Faith, Freedom, Country

“After this expedition he made frequent expeditions into Hind, in the prosecution of holy wars, and there he conquered forts upon lofty hills, in order to seize the treasures they contained, and expel their garrisons. He took all the properties they contained into his own possession, and captures cities in Hind, which had up to that time had been tenanted only by infidels, and not trodden by the camels and horses of the Musalmáns.”

Sabuktigin (942–997) Founder of the Ghaznavid Empire

Elliot and Dowson, History of India as told by its own Historians, Volume II, pp. 18-19. Translation of Tarikh-i-Yamini of al-Utbi.

War, Time, Horse

“Hey wait a minute, this isn't a Copyright claim now is it? This looks more like a personal ad! How about checking out some of the local press instead of trying to pick up people in other continents? Actually, being in different countries(even on different continents) means that we don't have the same laws here. You know, in Sweden, it's still legal to do a lot of things. Elks can have sex with eachother without being prosecuted for instance. And people are allowed to copy. It's quite natural, both of them, don't you think?”

Peter Sunde (1978) Swedish activist and computer expert

The Pirate Bay Legal Threats: Prophecy House: Email and Response http://web.archive.org/20060423074547/static.thepiratebay.org/huckabay_resp.txt

People, Law, Sex, Nature

“The days of ‘Let’s haul this kid in front of the judge, scare him and send him home with a warning’ are long since gone,” says attorney Jay Leiderman. “ Prosecutorial discretion is a great thing if it’s exercised, but it doesn’t happen in any meaningful way these days, because prosecutions are so politicized.”

Jay Leiderman (1971) lawyer

As stated in, Prosecutorial Discretion: Let's Haul That Kid In Front of the Judge to Scare Him- Not. http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/is-former-sacramento-media-employee/content?oid=13239765
Variant: The days of ‘Let’s haul this kid in front of the judge, scare him and send him home with a warning’ are long since gone,” says attorney Jay Leiderman. “ Prosecutorial discretion is a great thing if it’s exercised, but it doesn’t happen in any meaningful way these days, because prosecutions are so politicized.

Way, Exercises, Home

“We are not talking here about a federal law prohibiting the States from regulating bubble-gum advertising, or even the construction of nuclear plants. We are talking about a federal law going to the core of state sovereignty: the power to exclude. […] The Court opinion’s looming specter of inutterable horror—‘[i]f [Section] 3 of the Arizona statute were valid, every State could give itself independent authority to prosecute federal registration violations’—seems to me not so horrible and even less looming. But there has come to pass, and is with us today, the specter that Arizona and the States that support it predicted: A Federal Government that does not want to enforce the immigration laws as written, and leaves the States’ borders unprotected against immigrants whom those laws would exclude. So the issue is a stark one. Are the sovereign States at the mercy of the Federal Executive’s refusal to enforce the Nation’s immigration laws? […] Arizona bears the brunt of the country’s illegal immigration problem. Its citizens feel themselves under siege by large numbers of illegal immigrants who invade their property, strain their social services, and even place their lives in jeopardy. Federal officials have been unable to remedy the problem, and indeed have recently shown that they are unwilling to do so. […] Arizona has moved to protect its sovereignty—not in contradiction of federal law, but in complete compliance with it. The laws under challenge here do not extend or revise federal immigration restrictions, but merely enforce those restrictions more effectively. If securing its territory in this fashion is not within the power of Arizona, we should cease referring to it as a sovereign State.”

Antonin Scalia (1936–2016) former Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Concurring in part and dissenting in part, Arizona v. United States (2012) : 567 U.S. ___ (2012); decided June 25, 2012.
2010s

Law, Feeling, Fashion, Support

“As a 15 year jurist, I like to think I speak with clarity. So let me try again. When a United States Senator commits a non criminal act of indiscretion; and when it is brought to his attention he immediately has the integrity to apologize; and the apology is accepted by the victim: IT IS WRONG for the dogs of war to leap onto his back and demand his resignation from the United States Senate. It is morally wrong.
And as an aside for all you sanctimonious judges who are demanding my resignation, hear this. I was a civil right lawyer actively prosecuting sexual harassment cases on behalf of the Attorney General's Office before Anita Hill and before you were born.
Lighten up folks. This is how Democrats remain in the minority.”

Bill O'Neill (1947) Ohio judge

Facebook post, 11-17-2017 PM

War, Dogs, Thinking

“When will the church do her appointed work? She is represented as an angel of light, flying through heaven with the everlasting gospel to be proclaimed to the world. This represents the speed and directness with which the church is to prosecute her work.”

Ellen G. White (1827–1915) American author and founder/leader of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church

Medical Ministry (1932), p. 131

World, Angels, Light, Speed

“By strengthening the protection of the citizen whose testimony is necessary and indispensable for the successful prosecution of a case, we also strengthen accountability and reduce corruption in the public and private sectors.”

Francis Escudero (1969) Filipino politician

The Philippine Daily Inquirer http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/465547/escudero-files-bill-expanding-protection-of-witnesses-whistleblowers 2013

Success

“After Rome had acquired the undisputed mastery of the world, the Greeks were wont to annoy their Roman masters by the assertion, that Rome was indebted for her greatness to the fever, of which Alexander of Macedon died at Babylon on the 11th of June, 323. As it was not very agreeable for them to reflect on the actual past, they were fond of allowing their thoughts to dwell on what might have happened, had the great king turned his arms towards the west, and contested the Carthaginian supremacy by sea with his fleet, and the Roman supremacy by land with his phalanxes. It is not impossible that Alexander may have cherished such thoughts; nor is it necessary to resort for such an explanation of their origin to the mere difficulty which an autocrat provided with soldiers and ships experiences in setting limits to his warlike career. It was an enterprise worthy of a great Greek king to protect the siceliots against Carthage and the Tarentines against Rome.. and the Italian embassies from the Bruttians, Lucanians, and Etruscans, that long with numerous others made their appearance at Babylon, afforded him sufficient opportunities of becoming acquainted with the circumstances of the peninsula, and of contracting relations with it. Carthage with is many connections in the east could not but attract the attention of the mighty monarch, and it was probably part of his design to convert the nominal sovereignty of the Persian king over the Tyrian colony into a real one: the apprehensions of the Carthaginians are shown by the Phoenician spy in the suite of Alexander. Whether, however, those ideas were dreams or actual projects, the king died without having interfered in the affairs of the west, and his ideas were buried with him. For a few brief years a Grecian ruler had held in his hands the whole intellectual vigour of the Hellenic race combined with the whole material resources of the east. On his death the work to which his life had been devoted - the establishment of a Hellenism in the east - was by no means undone; but his empire had barely been united when it was again dismembered, and, admidst the constant quarrels of the different states that were formed out of its ruins, the object of world-wide interest which they were destined to promote - the diffusion of Greek culture in the east - though not abandoned, was prosecuted on a feeble and stunted scale.”

Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) German classical scholar, historian, jurist, journalist, politician, archaeologist and writer

Vol. 1., Page 394 - 395. Translated by W.P.Dickson.
The History of Rome - Volume 1

Life, Death, World, Dreams

“At their ten-year high school reunion, they realized they all had something in common: crime. Cassidy covered it, Nicole investigated it, and Allison prosecuted it. At the time, Nicole was working for the Denver FBI field office, but not long afterward she was transferred to Portland. At Allison’s suggestion the three women met for dinner, and a friendship began. They had half-jokingly christened themselves the Triple Threat Club in honor of the Triple Threat Chocolate Cake they had shared that day.”

Lis Wiehl (1961) American legal scholar

Source: Heart of Ice A Triple Threat Novel with April Henry (Thomas Nelson), p. 12

Women, Friendship, School, Time

“Do not allow your sorrow or your rage to become hostility toward people on the basis of their ethnicity or their religious views. That is unacceptable; it is out of bounds, and if you break the law, we will prosecute you for it.”

John Ashcroft (1942) American politician

Source: Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice (2006), p. 179

Hostility, People, Law, Rage

“As we see the threat changing, evolving becoming a more complex threat, we need to make sure that our police and security and intelligence agencies have the powers they need. I mean longer prison sentences for people convicted of terrorist offences. I mean making it easier for the authorities to deport foreign terrorist suspects back to their own countries. And I mean doing more to restrict the freedom and the movements of terrorist suspects when we have enough evidence to know they are a threat, but not enough evidence to prosecute them in full in court. And if our human rights laws stop us from doing it, we will change the laws so we can do it.”

Theresa May (1956) Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech on the election trail after the June 2017 London Bridge attack (7 June 2017). http://www.bbc.com/news/election-2017-40181444 2010s, 2017

People, Law, Intelligence, Freedom

“In any conflict, your fate will depend on your action. Do not destroy oil wells, a source of wealth that belongs to the Iraqi people. Do not obey any command to use weapons of mass destruction against anyone, including the Iraqi people. War crimes will be prosecuted. War criminals will be punished. And it will be no defense to say, "I was just following orders."”

George W. Bush (1946) 43rd President of the United States

Ultimatum to Iraq (17 March 2003) http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/mar/18/iraq.usa1 2000s, 2003

Fate, War, People, Dependency

“The Executive order that was issued on February 19, 1942, was for the sole purpose of prosecuting the war with the Axis Powers, and ceased to be effective with the end of those hostilities. Because there was no formal statement of its termination, however, there is concern among many Japanese-Americans that there may yet be some life in that obsolete document. I think it appropriate, in this our Bicentennial Year, to remove all doubts on that matter, and to make clear our commitment in the future.”

Gerald Ford (1913–2006) American politician, 38th President of the United States (in office from 1974 to 1977)

1970s, Proclamation 4417 (1976)

Life, Hostility, War, Thinking

“The Communists were promising retirement for all state employees at age 35. The Socialists were proposing absolutely nothing because they couldn't elect a leader who would propose things. The centre-right parties (of which there were about ten) were all promising employers that they would no longer have to pay workers and would be exempt from prosecution for any industrial pollution that killed fewer than 100,000 people. The far right was proposing, less realistically, to have immigrants barbecued in every place du marché on Friday nights. And in a similar vein, the rural party promised to change the law on endangered species so that hunters could now shoot dodos, unicorns, mermaids and American tourists.”

Stephen Clarke book A Year in the Merde

on political parties in France before an election:
A Year in the Merde (2005)

People, Age, Law, Change

“If Courtezans and Strumpets were to be prosecuted with as much Rigour as some silly People would have it, what Locks or Bars would be sufficient to preserve the Honour of our Wives and Daughters?”

Bernard Mandeville book The Fable of the Bees

Remark H, p. 95
The Fable of the Bees (1714)

People, Daughters

“On [defense lawyers]: "They lie, they cheat, they'll say anything. They walk a thin line that I don't even want to get near. Like in the David Westerfield case. They knew the whole time he did it, because he knew where her body was, and they used that as a bargaining chip to improve his situation. But when that didn't work [the police found the body on their own], they proceeded to drag the Van Dams through the mud. It's disgusting. Some people argue that the prosecution just wants to get a conviction. What joy would I get out of sending the wrong person to jail?"”

Nancy Grace (1959) American legal commentator, television host, television journalist, and former prosecutor

The Intervention Magazine, interventionmag.com http://www.interventionmag.com/cms/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=408,

People, Lie, Time, Joy

“Anti-Semitic publications have existed in Germany for centuries. A book I had, written by Dr. Martin Luther, was, for instance, confiscated. Dr. Martin Luther would very probably sit in my place in the defendants' dock today, if this book had been taken into consideration by the Prosecution. In this book The Jews and Their Lies, Dr. Martin Luther writes that the Jews are a serpent's brood and one should burn down their synagogues and destroy them…”

Julius Streicher (1885–1946) German politician

Quoted in "The Destruction of the European Jews: Third Edition" - by Raul Hilberg - History - 2003

Books

“Treatment is not now available for almost half of those who would benefit from it. Yet we are willing to build more and more jails in which to isolate drug users even though at one-seventh the cost of building and maintaining jail space and pursuing, detaining, and prosecuting the drug user, we could subsidize commensurately effective medical care and psychological treatment.”

William F. Buckley Jr. (1925–2008) American conservative author and commentator

The War On Drugs Is Lost (1995)

“None of these strictures, however, should inhibit any one of us, in his individual capacity, from declaring himself on the issues of the trial and its fairness … So in spite of my insistence on the limits of my official capacity, I personally want to say that I am appalled and ashamed that things should have come to such a pass in this country that I am skeptical of the ability of black revolutionaries to achieve a fair trial anywhere in the United States. In large part this atmosphere has been created by police actions and prosecutions against the Panthers in many parts of the country. It is also one more inheritance from centuries of racial discrimination and oppression…. The first contribution to the fairness of the trial which anyone can make is to cool rather than heat up the atmosphere in which the trial will be held.”

Kingman Brewster, Jr. (1919–1988) American diplomat

Statement to a meeting of the faculty of Yale College, explaining why the university could not use its funds to help defendants in a Black Panther murder trial, as quoted in The Washington Post (5 May 1970), p. A16

Parting, Personality, Country

“In Muslim majority states in northern Nigeria, speaking out against Islam is blasphemy and it is punishable by death or imprisonment. Criticizing Islam is dangerous not just because the state could prosecute, execute or jail the critic, but one could be killed by Islamic mobs. In fact the chances are that one is more likely to die in the hands of the later than the former.”

Leo Igwe (1970) Nigerian human rights activist

An Interview with Dr. Leo Igwe — Founder, Nigerian Humanist Movement (2017)

Death, Chance

“I speak of the war as fruitless; for it is clear that, prosecuted upon the basis of the proclamations of September 22d and September 24th, 1862, prosecuted, as I must understand these proclamations, to say nothing of the kindred blood which has followed, upon the theory of emancipation, devastation, subjugation, it cannot fail to be fruitless in every thing except the harvest of woe which it is ripening for what was once the peerless republic.”

Franklin Pierce (1804–1869) American politician, 14th President of the United States (in office from 1853 to 1857)

Address to the Citizens of Concord, New Hampshire (4 July 1863).

War, Understanding

“Contemplating such questions as the dialectical relations between being and becoming has inspired and strengthened my beliefs. You are not hearing here some random ideas of a passionate student or a distressed prisoner, but reflections rooted in the experience of a woman physicist who happens to have also advocated for equal rights and human rights, and who as a result was subjected to threats, deprivation, arrests, continuous prosecutions, and finally sentenced to a total of 23 years of imprisonment, 16 years of which has to be served based on the ruling laws in Iran. The harsh treatment and excessive sentence to which I have been subjected were not due to any underground violent or terrorist activity on my part, but– as admitted by the judges of this very system–because of my insistence on the rights of civil society and of human rights. My case, then, clearly portrays the unjust, brutal and illegal practices of the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Narges Mohammadi (1972) Iranian human rights activist

Letter Accepting 2018 Andrei Sakharov Prizefrom (2018)

Law, Idea, Question, Passion