Jack McCoy quotes from Law & Order

McCoy

Ask me how I sleep at night.

Connie

How do you sleep at night?

McCoy

Like a baby.

He expected me to save his legs, so I did!

McCoy

You saved his legs. You lost the patient!

And given the odds, I'd do it again.

McCoy

Which is why, Dr. Vaughn, your cure is worse than any disease.

Connie

So, adopting a baby was just a publicity stunt?

I was giving Christopher a better life, and I was drawing attention to a region of the world that is buckling under an AIDS pandemic.

McCoy

Save that for the press, Mrs. Archer.

Was he going to be raised by the nanny? Yes, but so is my daughter, and so are the children of a lot of working women.

McCoy

Not to the extent that their children are unrecognizable to them.

Connie

[over a scotch with McCoy] I wanna have kids, you know? I wanna wake up with them in the morning, make them breakfast, see them off to school, and tuck them in at night. I just can't imagine seeing them as a burden.

McCoy

Some people are wired wrong. Ugliest part of our work.

Connie

Babies... babies as fashion... pour me another.

McCoy

Dawn Sterling is a terrific liar.

Yeah. Too bad she's not our witness.

Lt. Van Buren

Look, it's one thing to say you shoved someone. It's a big leap to say you strung 'em up.

McCoy

Or your people didn't push Rodriguez hard enough.

Lt. Van Buren

So what? We should've broken out the waterboard? After all, Rodriguez is here illegally.

McCoy

It was a sloppy interrogation!

Lt. Van Buren

My people worked Rodriguez appropriately! If you don't like it, call the Chief of D's.

Why would I kill her?

Connie

To protect your profit center in illegal workers. Over half of your employees are underpaid, undocumented aliens.

Look, maybe I cut a few corners. But it's still my word against the word of this illegal Spanish kid.

Connie

And who do you think the jury's gonna believe? A kid who busts his ass sixty hours a week to send $75 to his mother, or a man who flouts the law and parlays his desperation into a small fortune?

McCoy

If you're convicted of staging Erin Garrett's suicide, I promise, you'll do forty to life. I'm offering you fifteen.

I have a family. A wife and kids.

Connie

So did Erin Garrett.

10 years. No property forfeiture.

McCoy

The deal is 15 to life.

If I didn't hire these people, what else were they gonna do?! How else are they gonna support their families?!

McCoy

That might be a defense in a labor violation, not a murder. Fifteen years or a trial, Mr. Easton.

Connie

You're a one-man border patrol, Jack.

McCoy

You give me way too much credit.

Connie

I don't think so. You cleaned house.

McCoy

Not really. You're forgetting Erin Garrett had a Jamaican nanny.

I think you oughtta figure out who to charge with this, and do it fast.

McCoy

My bet's on Lange.

Okay. Reassure me that this is not colored by your history with him.

McCoy

I want to convict him, Arthur. It happens to coincide nicely with the fact that he's guilty.

What do you wanna hear from me, McCoy? That I killed my wife? That I cut her throat? That I gutted her?

McCoy

I read your book. I heard it already.

Yeah, and you're pissed off that you can't do anything about it.

McCoy

Contrary to what your attorney says, Mr. Lange, that's not why you're on trial here.

I'm not gonna say I killed Serena, either.

An Alford plea is still justice served, Jack. It's win-win.

McCoy

It's still 15 years too light. Forget it, we'll finish the trial.

You know all that talk in the press about a vendetta? It was just that, it was talk. But I wasn't far off the mark, was I?

McCoy

Show yourselves out.

I was just trying to protect my daughter.

McCoy

By breaking the Fifth Commandment, Mr. Reese. You not only killed, you killed the wrong man.

McCoy

Maybe Blair's right. Maybe it is always a black and white thing.

Connie

He did have an attitude.

McCoy

Maybe he's got a right.

Connie

We're getting our ass kicked.

McCoy

Thanks for sugar-coating it. Any suggestions?

[to McCoy] I just got off the phone with the U.S. Attorney's office. They're seeking contempt charges against you. Talking about jail time.

Connie

I'm gonna go bake you a cake. Put a hacksaw in it.

McCoy

Make it chocolate.