Jack McCoy quotes from Law & Order

McCoy

The law says your right to rage ends at the other guy's nose.

McCoy

This is no champion, ladies and gentlemen. This is no favorite son. This is a man who got by on his talent, had others willing to lie for him because of it, had others do his bidding in order to profit from it. A child taken from his dying mother's womb will have to struggle to survive without her. Dina Meredith's mother will have to make it without her daughter. It's time to stop cheering for this man and for his ability to play ball. It's time to stop fretting about the opportunities supposedly taken from him, and to start thinking about the opportunities and the lives stolen by him.

McCoy

The bottom line is this: Hector Santiago is dead because these men paid him $200 to get into a cheap car and cross his fingers, and hold on tight.

McCoy

Don't pretend your hands are clean, Mr. Girard. Not unless you're willing to risk losing them.

McCoy

$362 a month for a 3-bedroom apartment? I'd kill for it.

McCoy

We live in a world where people commit unspeakable violent acts against other people. Terrorists, racists, anyone who kills out of hate. Do we hold them accountable, or do we excuse their acts and sit them down for a chat to tell them that it's wrong? In the world the defense would create, murderers would never be held responsible. In that world, right and wrong would lose all meaning. Killers would become victims. The only one who would benefit from the defendant being found mentally ill is the defendant. Not society. Certainly not the victim. Not Thomas Reddick or his family, or anyone else with his skin color. To excuse Ray Burrows because of his prejudice only promotes racism. What happened to Thomas Reddick is a crime of hate. To call it anything else is to deny justice.

McCoy

Never get Freudian with a man holding a pickle.

McCoy

Last I heard, stupid is not a defense to murder.

McCoy

[about gay people] I say let 'em marry. Why shouldn't they be as miserable as the rest of us?

McCoy

Lindsay Starr didn't deserve to die. She was no longer a soldier. She worked in a supermarket. She was lured into a deserted office and ambushed. And while Nadira Harrington's misfortunes might explain her actions, they can't excuse cold-blooded retribution for the abuse of her brother. If Corporal Starr's conduct at Abu Ghraib exceeded military or international standards, we have, in our civil society, procedures to redress those wrongs, if wrongs they be. Yes, the processes are slow, messy, uneven. But Nadira Harrington had choices. To vote, to sue, to advocate for justice. Instead, she opted for blood feud, and the end product of blood feud is chaos. Our history books are rife with examples of religious zealots of all stripes. Christians, Muslims, Jews twisting their faith's fundamental morality to accommodate a personal or political agenda. Neither rationale justifies killing. The highest moral law in our culture is, "Thou shalt not kill." And where we live, killing in the name of God, country, or brother is still called murder.

McCoy

It's frustrating, as a prosecutor, when you're sure someone's a murderer but the only thing you can convict him of is tax evasion or assault. It's frustrating. But it's fundamental. You can't punish a crime that you can't prove. That's where the penal code meets the Declaration of Independence. What do you do as a cop if you're sure there's a bad man on your beat but you don't have a made case against him? You don't frame him, you can't harass him, you make the case. You definitely don't shoot him. So, what should you do as a citizen if you're sure a monstrous predator has been released from prison because they couldn't hold him anymore under the law? Write your own law? Run him down in the street? You make sure that the state enforces its rules. You get him for violating parole. The day he moves in with Sheryl, you have the cops at the door. You make sure they watch him. And if they don't, if the system messes up, if he hurts someone like Lowenstein could've hurt Sheryl's little girl, you sound the general alarm, you call the police and the papers. You go on TV. You make a scandal, not a plan to commit murder. Joyce Draper is talented and brilliant. She might be the smartest person in this room. She's a sympathetic defendant, and Jacob Lowenstein was a repulsive victim. It doesn't matter. Joyce Draper murdered Jacob Lowenstein, deliberately, with malice aforethought. And there's no reasonable doubt about that whatsoever. She didn't even really try to explain his blood on her car because she's betting on you to let her get away with it. Citizens, no matter what their role, if it's a doctor or a police officer, a prosecutor or a juror, may not take the law into their own hands. Joyce Draper belongs in jail, long enough to make it plain that we as a society will not tolerate citizens choosing who lives and who dies. And it's up to you to put her there.

McCoy

[to the jury] Hold Randall Stoler accountable. There are real heroes out there. You don't have to settle for a fake.

McCoy

I don't care if he comes to court with a hair shirt and a scourge. Murder is murder.

McCoy

Is Ms. Weiss serious? If you really, really, really turn to God, you can murder someone and walk away with a clean slate? That doesn't put Mr. Elwin in line with any higher moral authority I'm aware of. It places him above the law. We can all acknowledge the existence of a higher moral authority. We see it in action when our collective conscience compels us to reject unjust or immoral laws. But while our actions may be guided by our faith, we deliberately don't conduct them under the guise of religion. Our founders left "God" out of the Constitution, not for lack of faith among them, but because of what they knew about the toxic combination of state and religious power. So, if Mr. Elwin regards his prosecution for a hate murder as unjust or immoral, let him present his arguments without the cloak of religion. To that, the People say the defendant's virtuous conduct after Justin Lennard's murder should be a factor in his sentencing. But to dismiss this case outright would be a miscarriage of justice that contradicts more than 200 years of American jurisprudence. If you kill someone, Mr. Elwin, you have to answer to the State first. And to Justin Lennard, and his family. And then, hopefully, someday, to your Maker.

McCoy

If I were you, Mr. Dolan, I'd hate the police too. The press, the D.A.'s office, me ... But I'd hate the person who killed my daughter more.