Great Quotes About Crime and the Justice System
I've been reading the classic crime novel by George V. Higgins, 'The Friends of Eddie Coyle.' It has some of the best dialogue in any fiction. Here are my favorite two examples:
One criminal to another: 'This life's hard, but it's harder if you're stupid.'
And this exchange between an old defense lawyer to a federal prosecutor discussing how the system grinds on and nothing really changes:
'And in another year or so,' Clark said, 'he'll be in again, here or someplace else, and I'll be talking to some other bastard, or maybe even you again, and we'll try another one and he'll go away again. Is there any end to this shit? Does anything ever change in this racket? '
'Hey Foss, the prosecutor said, taking Clark by the arm, 'of course it changes. Don't take it so hard. Some of us die, the rest of us get older, new guys come along, old guys disappear. It changes every day.'
'It's hard to notice, though,' Clark said.
'It is, the prosecutor said, 'it certainly is.'
And the wheel goes round and round.
I've been reading the classic crime novel by George V. Higgins, 'The Friends of Eddie Coyle.' It has some of the best dialogue in any fiction. Here are my favorite two examples:
One criminal to another: 'This life's hard, but it's harder if you're stupid.'
And this exchange between an old defense lawyer to a federal prosecutor discussing how the system grinds on and nothing really changes:
'And in another year or so,' Clark said, 'he'll be in again, here or someplace else, and I'll be talking to some other bastard, or maybe even you again, and we'll try another one and he'll go away again. Is there any end to this shit? Does anything ever change in this racket? '
'Hey Foss, the prosecutor said, taking Clark by the arm, 'of course it changes. Don't take it so hard. Some of us die, the rest of us get older, new guys come along, old guys disappear. It changes every day.'
'It's hard to notice, though,' Clark said.
'It is, the prosecutor said, 'it certainly is.'
And the wheel goes round and round.
Accused of Buying Sex Shop to Launder Money
A suspended Connecticut Roman Catholic priest who authorities say dealt pounds of methamphetamine and bought a sex shop intending to launder his drug money will spend another three years in prison after being sentenced on Thursday.
Federal investigators said Wallin had associates in California send him methamphetamine beginning in late 2008 or early 2009. By 2011, Wallin's partners were sending him one to three pounds of meth a month and Wallin was running the drug operation out of his apartment in Waterbury, investigators said.
Wallin also bought the "Land of Oz & Dorothy's Place" adult video and sex toy shop in North Haven and apparently intended to launder drug proceeds that totaled in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, federal agents said in court documents.
Rivers, who has since returned to Michigan, fell victim to civil asset forfeiture, a legal tool that has been criticized as a violation of due process and a contradiction of the idea that criminal defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Asset forfeiture allows police to seize property they suspect is related to criminal activity, without even charging its owner with a crime. The charges are filed against the property itself -- including cash, jewelry, cars and houses -- which can then be sold, with part of the proceeds flowing back to the department that made the seizure.
“We don’t have to prove that the person is guilty,” Sean Waite, the agent in charge at the DEA's Albuquerque's office, told the Journal. “It’s that the money is presumed to be guilty.”
Thanks to a new, cheapo way of manufacturing meth, labs are sprouting up in motels around the country—and blowing up next to unwitting guests.
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