THE JAILHOUSE LAWYER'S

FAVORITE LEGAL QUOTATIONS

FROM THE U.S. SUPREME COURT

"Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the State was to make men free to develop their faculties; and that in its government the deliberate forces should prevail over the arbitrary. They valued liberty both as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty. They believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; that without free speech and assembly discussion would be futile; that with them, discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine; that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty; and that this should be a fundamental principle of American government...they knew that order cannot be secured merely through fear of punishment for its infraction; that it is hazardous to discourage thought, hope and imagination; that fear breeds repression; that repression breeds hate; that hate menaces stable government; that the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies; and that the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones." - Justice Louis Brandeis, Whitney v. California, 274 US at 375 "An unconstitutional act is not a law; it confers no rights; it imposes no duties; it affords no protection; it creates no office; it is in legal contemplation, as inoperative as though it had never been passed." Norton v. Shelby County, 118 US 425 (1885) "Where rights secured by the Federal Constitution are involved, there can be no rule-making or legislation which would abrogate them." Miranda v. Arizona, 384 US 436 (1966) "The idea prevails with some -- indeed, it found expression in arguments at the bar -- that we have in this country substantially and practically two national governments; one, to be maintained under the Constitution, with all of its restrictions; the other to be maintained by Congress outside and independently of that instrument, by exercising such powers as other nations of the earth are accustomed to exercise. "I take leave to say that if the principles thus announced should ever receive the sanction of a majority of this court, a radical and mischievous change in our system of government will be the result. We will, in that event, pass from the era of constitutional liberty guarded and protected by a written constitution into an era of legislative absolutism. "It will be an evil day for American liberty if the theory of a government outside of the supreme law of the land finds lodgment in our constitutional jurisprudence. No higher duty rests upon this court than to exert its full authority to prevent all violation of the principles of the Constitution." See Downes v. Bidwell, 182 U.S. 244 (1901), Harlan dissenting. "Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law: it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administation of the criminal law the end justifies the means - to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal - would bring terrible retribution. Against that pernicious doctrine this Court should resolutely set its face." Justice Louis Brandeis in Olmstead v. U.S., 277 US at 485. (1928) "Men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights,-'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;' and to 'secure, ' not grant or create, these rights, governments are instituted. That property which a man has honestly acquired he retains full control of, subject to these limitations: First, that he shall not use it to his neighbor's injury, and that does not mean that he must use it for his neighbor's benefit; second, that if the devotes it to a public use, he gives to the public a right to control that use; and third, that whenever the public needs require, the public may take it upon payment of due compensation." BUDD v. PEOPLE OF STATE OF NEW YORK, 143 U.S. 517 (1892) "Among these unalienable rights, as proclaimed in that great document, is the right of men to pursue their happiness, by which is meant the right to pursue any lawful business or vocation, in any manner not inconsistent with the equal rights of others, which may increase their prosperity or develop their faculties, so as to give to them their highest enjoyment. The common business and callings of life, the ordinary trades and pursuits, which are innocuous in themselves, and have been followed in all communities from time immemorial, must therefore be free in this country to all alike upon the same conditions. The right to pursue them, without let or hinderance, except that which is applied to all persons of the same age, sex, and condition, is a distinguishing privilege of citizens of the United States, and an essential element of that freedom which they claim as their birthright. It has been well said that 'THE PROPERTY WHICH EVERY MAN HAS IN HIS OWN LABOR, AS IT IS THE ORIGINAL FOUNDATION OF ALL OTHER PROPERTY, SO IT IS THE MOST SACRED AND INVIOLABLE. The patrimony of the poor man lies in the strength and dexterity of his own hands, and to hinder his employing this strength and dexterity in what manner he thinks proper, without injury to his neighbor, is a plain violation of this most sacred property. It is a manifest encroachment upon the just liberty both of the workman and of those who might be disposed to employ him. . . The right to follow any of the common occupations of life is an inalienable right, it was formulated as such under the phrase 'pursuit of happiness' in the declaration of independence, which commenced with the fundamental proposition that 'all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.' This right is a large ingredient in the civil liberty of the citizen. To deny it to all but a few favored individuals, by investing the latter with a monopoly, is to invade one of the fundamental privileges of the citizen, contrary not only to common right, but, as I think, to the express words of the constitution. It is what no legislature has a right to do; and no contract to that end can be binding on subsequent legislatures. . ." BUTCHERS' UNION CO. v. CRESCENT CITY CO., 111 U.S. 746 (1884) "I had thought it self-evident that all men were endowed by their Creator with liberty as one of the cardinal unalienable rights. It is that basic freedom which the Due Process Clause protects, rather than the particular rights or privileges conferred by specific laws or regulations. . . It demeans the holding in Morrissey - more importantly it demeans the concept of liberty itself - to ascribe to that holding nothing more than a protection of an interest that the State has created through its own prison regulations. For if the inmate's protected liberty interests are no greater than the State chooses to allow, he is really little more than the slave described in the 19th century cases. I think it clear that even the inmate retains an unalienable interest in liberty - at the very minimum the right to be treated with dignity - which the Constitution may never ignore." MEACHUM v. FANO, 427 U.S. 215 (1976) "Decency, security, and liberty alike demand that governmental officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously." - Ibid. "It is monstrous that courts should aid or abet the lawbreaking police officer. It is abiding truth that '[n]othing can destroy a government more quickly than its own failure to observe its own laws or worse, its disregard of the charter of its own existence.'" Justice Brennan quoting Mapp v. Ohio, 367 US 643, 659 (1961) in Harris v. New York, 401 US 222, 232. (1971) "We find it intolerable that one constitutional right should have to be surrendered in order to assert another." - Simmons v. U.S. 390 US 389 (1968) "Many citizens because of their respect for what only appears to be a law are cunningly coerced into waiving their rights due to ignorance." - U.S. v. Minker

INDIVIDUAL SOVEREIGNTY

INDIVIDUAL'S RIGHT TO RESIST AN UNLAWFUL ARREST

THE FOURTH AMENDMENT

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." - United States Constitution

* See Marshall v. Barlows Inc., 436 US 307, 315, 98 S.Ct. 1816, 1822 (1978); U.S. v. Brignoni-Ponce, 422 US 873, 878, 95 S.Ct. 2574, 2578, 45 L.Ed.2d 607 (1975); Cady v. Dombrosky, 413 US 433, 439, 93 S.Ct. 2523, 2527, 37 L.Ed.2d 706 (1973); Terry v. Ohio, 392 US 1, 20-21, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 1879, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968); Wolf v. Colorado, 338 US 25, 27-28 (1948)

- Justice Potter Stewart

"In cases of misdemeanor, a peace officer like a private person has at common law no power of arresting without a warrant except when a breach of the peace has been committed in his presence or there is reasonable ground for supposing that a breach of the peace is about to be committed or renewed in his presence." Halsbury's Laws of England, Vol. 9 part III, 612. The reason for arrest for misdemeanors without warrant at common law was promptly to suppress breaches of the peace, 1 Stephen, History of Criminal Law, 193..." Carrol v. U.S., 267 US 132, 157

- Justice Potter Stewart

THE FIFTH AMENDMENT

"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." - United States Constitution

THE SIXTH AMENDMENT

"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been priviously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense." -United States Constitution

"[R]eason and reflection require us to recognize that in our adversary system of criminal justice, any person haled into court, who is too poor to hire a lawyer, cannot be assured a fair trial unless counsel is provided for him. This seems to us to be an obvious truth. Governments, both state and federal, quite properly spend vast sums of money to establish machinery to try defendants accused of crime. Lawyers to prosecute are everywhere deemed essential to protect the public's interest in an orderly society. Similarly, there are few defendants charged with crime, few indeed, who fail to hire the best lawyers they can get to prepare and present their defenses. That government hires lawyers to prosecute and defendants who have the money hire lawyers to defend are the strongest indications of the widespread belief that lawyers in criminal courts are necessities, not luxuries. The right of one charged with crime to counsel may not be deemed [440 U.S. 367, 377] fundamental and essential to fair trials in some countries, but it is in ours. From the very beginning, our state and national constitutions and laws have laid great emphasis on procedural and substantive safeguards designed to assure fair trials before impartial tribunals in which every defendant stands equal before the law. This noble ideal cannot be realized if the poor man charged with crime has to face his accusers without a lawyer to assist him." Gideon v. Wainright 372 U.S., at 344.

"A conviction obtained where the accused was denied counsel is treated as void for all purposes. Burgett v. Texas, 389 US 109 (1967)

THE JURY



To obtain a video tape of THE JAILHOUSE LAWYER'S 5 hour Seminar ($125) or a copy of THE JAILHOUSE LAWYER'S Criminal Self Defense Manual ($145) please send a postal money order only to: Scott Thurston, C/o P.O. Box 373, Juliaetta, Idaho 83535. THE JAILHOUSE LAWYER'S Seminar Video and THE JAILHOUSE LAWYER'S Criminal Self Defense Manual will give Pro Se litigants and legal laymen valuable and useful knowledge that will help equip them to do strategic battle in the courts. Learn how to demand your rights and defend yourself when you are falsley and/or wrongfully accused.



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