Jack McCoy quotes from Law & Order

McCoy

[at a self-proclaimed psychic's trial] So, how will this trial turn out?

Defense attorney

Objection!

Very funny, Mr. McCoy. Please don't do that again.

McCoy

Masters might not be as crazy as he looks. Last year, 50 million people paid 50 bucks to watch 6 psychics talk to George Washington on pay-per-view.

What's the point? I hear the old boy wasn't such a great interview when he was alive.

McCoy

Scofield has been standing over the oven for twenty-five years. He thought it was about time he got a taste of the pie.

Serena

Now Scofield's out and Anchin's in. That's going to be a hard pill for the parents of the Knowles School to swallow.

Oh, they'll get over it, once they forget about where his money came from.

McCoy

It's the American way: yesterday's robber baron is tomorrow's philanthropist.

Serena

What you're really trying to say is cash trumps merit every time.

And twice on Sundays!

McCoy

There's always a chance Justin could be rehabilitated, Arthur.

4 dead? I don't think he's earned that chance. And I also think my senior prosecutor should agree with it.

McCoy

I do.

Serena

But...?

McCoy

I'm a father.

Serena

You didn't ask for bail, Jessica. You must know...

I know a lot of things. I know I defended a father who raped and murdered his 11-year-old daughter. I've defended a guy who, for no apparent reason, walked into a grocery store, shot 12 innocent people with an Uzi. Right now, I've got a kid who decapitated his mom, hung her head on a stick outside his church. All the scum of the Earth, they send them my way. I do my best for them. But this guy... So you're turning down my offer?

McCoy

You know I have no choice.

Damn it.

McCoy

All you have to do is...

I can't! Mark Bruner scares the socks off of me, Jack. How am I supposed to represent someone that I'm scared to death to be in the same room with?

McCoy

Did he threaten you?

My motion to be relieved. I know you have to oppose it, but do you really have to win?

McCoy

The job of a congressman is to become a senator. The job of a senator is to become president. Everyone does what they do for the wrong reasons, but somehow, the whole system works.

Serena

That's politics, not law.

McCoy

Same difference.

Serena

Oh, really? What's your secret ambition?

McCoy

It wouldn't be a secret then, would it?

I still think I coulda won, Denise notwithstanding.

McCoy

The minute she walked into that courtroom, all the sympathy you'd managed to work up for him would have backfired in his face. Turns out, he was in the unique position to know that, better than either of us.

Lawyer to lawyer: you didn't actually talk to Denise, did you?

McCoy

No.

Then how did you know?

McCoy

I didn't. But I do know that I'm barely white enough to live in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Cole Porter's lucky he's gone, what with the dearth of respect you show men of the theater.

McCoy

Cole Porter didn't have a dead woman in his townhouse, Lisa.

John Myers? Please. He's as likely to have killed somebody as...

Serena

Sweeney Todd?

America deserves the truth, and that's what I try to report. But what happens when I do? They slam the lid down, ship me out and stick me in a room with 12 guys in uniforms who tell me that if I open my mouth again, I can kiss my career goodbye. We're entitled to a free press, but the government won't allow it.

McCoy

That doesn't make what you did any less despicable.

You want despicable? Despicable is the Pentagon using some fake patriotism to eviscerate the First Amendment, and then using the media to spread that fake patriotism like manure in a garden! Look, you can arrest me, you can charge me with having myself shot, but we both know you can't prove any of it!

McCoy

Or we can go to the press and expose you as a self-important fraud.

Sure you could. But without three confirmations, their lawyers won't let them print any of it. Three cheers for American democracy.

It's not a bad thing, Jack

McCoy

What?

Having a heart.

McCoy

Can I please finish a sentence here?

Why? I'm not listening to you anyway.

McCoy

I think you had more choices than Alan Fisher did, don't you? He was held hostage to his own delusions, but you could control yourself. You could have looked for a job.

I had a job. I told you.

McCoy

And a house?

Yeah.

McCoy

And a car?

That's right.

McCoy

Friends, family, possessions.

And I lost them! I lost it all. You don't know what that feels like. To be a failure. To go to bed on a piece of wet cardboard every freakin' night, wondering, "How did this happen to me?"! I didn't want this. I didn't choose this life. This is something that happened to me, and it's like this thing in my chest that's killing me! [pounds chest] It gets me right here!

McCoy

Sounds human to me, Mr. Edgars.

I think you're giving the Feds way too much credit. They ain't that clever.

McCoy

Still, lucky break for them. Now they roll up the whole crew, starting with Peter Righetti for the murder of his uncle...

Good riddance.

McCoy

Should Renee Bishop be able to adopt a child with her lover, get married and raise a family? That question is for another court on another day, Mr. Hobart.

That day is coming soon.

McCoy

Offer stands, she can shave 10 years off her sentence.

She won't go for it. She'll try anything to stay in in her daughter's life.

McCoy

You're banking on the hope that there's a gay person on that jury.

I'm banking there's a parent.