Michael Cutter quotes from Law & Order

Cutter

You banished Patrick Friendly from True Path 3 years ago.

Because he violated our rules.

Cutter

He was a 17-year-old boy who smiled at the 16-year-old girl you had designs on.

I had a revelation.

Cutter

To have sex with a 16-year-old girl? Our prisons are filled with men who had such "revelations".

McCoy

Can anybody around here read?

Cutter

I believe that is a requirement to graduate from law school.

You happy now? You went after my money. My money had nothing to do with your job.

Cutter

Don't worry about money, Mr. Winston. I'll send you $100 on your birthday. You can use it at the prison canteen.

McCoy

I read the transcript. Very eloquent, the way you kept Susan Grayson just this side of perjury.

Cutter

That was the easy part. The hard part was finding a Kappa Delta Alpha who married a bug instead of squashing it.

Connie

They get away with murder, and inherit $2 million.

Cutter

The American dream.

Connie

[about McIntyre] Look at him. He'd rather be in jail as a Kennedy than out in the world as a toilet salesman.

Cutter

In either place, he's a murderer.

Cutter

So a killer sits in there eating caviar while we do... nothing?

We're trying to negotiate the Iranians out of building nuclear weapons. We don't need to be distracted by a common criminal.

Lt. Van Buren

Common murderer. Darvey left his suitcase in the cab with a gun inside. Ballistics are a near-perfect match.

I'm sorry. We have to respect the treaty.

McCoy

And if we don't, what are they going to do? Invade our embassy in Iran and take 50 hostages? Oh, wait - they already did that.

McCoy

We'll offer David Sutton a plea to Man-2. 6-12 years.

Cutter

For a first-degree murder?

McCoy

Have you looked at your evidence lately? 6-12, Mike. In an medium security prison. And make the offer tonight.

Cutter

You wanna tell me why we're carrying water for the Feds?

McCoy

It's called banking an IOU, which I can use in the Delacroix bank fraud case, where we'll need the Feds' help. I don't know how to break this to you, Mike, but yours is not the only case on my plate!

Cutter

Trade leniency for a murderer for help for a bank fraud case.

McCoy

A $2 billion bank fraud case, and your murderer still goes to prison. That's the kind of math I have to do in this job.

Cutter

Jack says the deal's off the table.

Connie

Well, that's good, seeing as that's what you already told David's lawyer.

Connie

What do you think? Catholic Children's Charitable Trust might have popped Decker and Prescott?

Cutter

American Poetry Foundation. That's a cutthroat bunch.

Cutter

Jonah Applebaum is the Boxcar Basher?

McCoy

You just put an insane serial killer back on the street.

Connie

He doesn't know that we know that. We... we can still pick him up.

McCoy

You damn well better. This could be Willie Horton all over again.

Cutter

Willie Horton? You're not worried about the election, are you?

McCoy

I'm worried about everything. About him killing someone else. About the way this office is run. A serial killer in our hands and then released. Am I being too picky?

Cutter

Because of what I did, a sick man is getting medication he needs.

McCoy

But that's not why you did it; you did it for your case.

Cutter

[shrugs] Win-win.

Gov. Donald Shalvoy

What do you want?

Cutter

Your resignation, Governor, with your reputation, such as it is, intact. Just say you're leaving office to support your wife and family in a time of personal crisis.

Gov. Donald Shalvoy

That wasn't the deal. McCoy said I'd stay in office.

Cutter

I'm not Jack McCoy.

I didn't invent the right of sovereigns, Mr. Cutter. I simply defined it.

Cutter

The right to do what they want with unlawful combatants.

Yes.

Cutter

Unlawful combatants like the American militia after King George declared them rebels?

Yes, like that.

Cutter

So, you would defend the brutal treatment of American prisoners by the British during the Revolutionary War?

From a legal standpoint, yes.

Cutter

Mr. Franklin, what is it about this country that you don't get?

Cutter

You know, that day, 8 years ago, we could see the towers burn from Adam's window.

McCoy

I remember.

Cutter

Part of me says, "I don't care what you do to these detainees. I don't want to know. Just protect us."

McCoy

The problem is, now we do know.

Cutter

Yeah. I'm not sure that makes a difference.