The issue is not whether there are horrible cases where the penalty seems "right". The real question is whether we will ever design a capital system that reaches only the "right" cases, without dragging in the wrong cases, cases of innocence or cases where death is not proportionate punishment. Slowly, even reluctantly, I have realized the answer to that question is no- we will never get it right.

The prosecutor, who is supposed to carry the burden of proof, really is an author.

Who are we but the stories we tell about ourselves, particularly if we accept them?

'Torts' more or less means 'wrongs'...One of my friends said that Torts is the course which proves that your mother was right.

If life's lessons could be reduced to single sentences, ther would be no need for fiction.

The law, for all its failings, has a noble goal - to make the little bit of life that people can actually control more just. We can't end disease or natural disasters, but we can devise rules for our dealings with one another that fairly weigh the rights and needs of everyone, and which, therefore, reflect our best vision of ourselves.

What kills a person at twenty-five? Leukemia. An accident. But George knows the better odds are that someone who passes at that age dies of unhappiness. Drug overdose. Suicide. Reckless behavior.