Jack McCoy quotes from Law & Order

Curtis

What if I had testified that you told us to shut up?

McCoy

It would have hurt. At least you got to dodge the question by calling me an idiot.

Curtis

Yeah, that helped.

Schiff

Nice going, you made her cry. That ought to win you points in the jury room.

McCoy

Sure, she had a rough childhood and I feel sorry for her. And if she hadn't left her mother to bleed to death on the floor, I'd give her a great big hug.

McCoy

Who's the judge?

Schiff

Sawyer.

McCoy

The one who returned those 2 kids back to their crackhead mother?

Schiff

Who later beat them to death. Yes, it's the same Sawyer.

Schiff

Clarence Darrow had Leopold and Loeb. Who do we have?

McCoy

Beavis and Butthead.

Ross

The Church protects murderers, the law says two people can fire the same bullet, and the victim's mother forgives her son's killers. You figure it out.

McCoy

You don't think you could? Forgive them, I mean?

Ross

No.

McCoy

Neither could I. What does that say about us?

Ross

It's like finding out Amelia Earhart flew to Bakersfield and hid out for fifty years.

McCoy

I got over Pete Rose.

Admit it, Mr. McCoy. We won.

McCoy

You didn't win. The system you want to destroy did.

Ross

His whole life was a charade. It's pathetic.

McCoy

Maybe thirty, forty years ago, it made more sense.

Schiff

Back then, they had lynch mobs and bull-whips. Now, they use toilet plungers. Progress.

Ross

[about Anderton] Last year he made a surprise takeover bid for Commonwealth Airlines. One week later, he withdrew the bid, and accused the FAA and the stockholders of conspiring against him. It's classic manic-depressive behavior.

Schiff

Doesn't make sense. Runs a Fortune 500 company.

McCoy

So did Howard Hughes.

McCoy

He kills 3 people and hides behind the bottle.

Ross

The law says he can.

McCoy

The law. [scoffs] Probably written on a cocktail napkin. Intent follows the bullet! It shouldn't matter if it was fired by a drunk or Carrie Nation.

McCoy

Doctors, the question is very simple: at the time she fired the gun, did Lindsay Carson appreciate the consequences of her action, and did she know it was wrong?

Yes.

No.

Ross

Terrific.

Schiff

The whole world says her father's a murderer; one guy tells her he's sick. She heard what she wanted to hear.

Ross

We all do.

McCoy

Yeah, but we don't all pay $40,000 to hear it.

In those S&M scenes, they were rehearsing what happened to them.

He's something, isn't he?

McCoy

So was Ted Bundy.

What good will all this do?

McCoy

Mr. Singer, your wife and Mr. Harding plunged into a moral quagmire that the law can only begin to address. Maybe they'll both drown in it.

You turning soft on me, Jack?

McCoy

You know I'm a sucker for an execution. I'm just here for the tortellini.