Legal Deficits (210)



Season 1
Head Cases
Still Crazy After All These Years
Catch and Release
Change of Course
And Eye for an Eye
Truth Be Told
Questionable Characters
Loose Lips
Greater Good
Hired Guns
Schmidt Happens
From Whence We Came
It Girls and Beyond
Till We Meat Again
Tortured Souls
Let Sales Ring
Death Be Not Proud

Season 2
The Black Widow
Schadenfreude
Finding Nimmo
A Whiff and a Prayer
Men to Boys
Witches of Mass Destruction
Truly Madly, Deeply
Ass Fat Jungle
Gone
Legal Deficits
The Cancer Man Can


Alan Shore: I'll take the blonde. Melissa. What are we doing in jail?

Melissa Hughes: They're saying I tried to rob a bank. I didn't. I just smashed a window.

Alan Shore: Ah!

Liz: And they say I'm a prostitute. Ha. Which is ridiculous.

Melissa Hughes: Back off, Ho.

Liz: What did you say? Come on.

Alan Shore: Liz?

Liz: Alan? Oh my God! You just dropped off the side of the earth

Alan Shore: I was in a relationship. But now I'm not. You still at 1 800- LIZZIE?

Melissa Hughes: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Whoa. Hey! Remember me? I'm in trouble here. They arrested me?




Clerk: Three-two-one-one-one-three. Commonwealth versus Bradley Chase. Assault with a deadly weapon…

Denny Crane: Waive reading Judge. And ask that these ridiculous charges be dismissed on the grounds of ridiculousness.




Judge Clark Brown: I must caution you both. These are serious criminal charges here. I'm not sure you should want to rush to judgment.

Denny Crane: Judge. You're old. I'm old. Lock and load. Before we're dead.




Denny Crane: What is this sudden concern of yours for people without money? I need to know.

Alan Shore: You need to look at the big picture. If people don't have it, they might wanna steal ours.

Denny Crane: Right.




Alan Shore: Do we have anybody in corporate who understands this credit card world? Somebody…

Denny Crane: Hands.

Alan Shore: Sorry?

Denny Crane: Hands Espenson. Banking and finance genius. Only don't call him Hands.

Alan Shore: Why would I? Why do you?




Jerry Espenson: The contract was deliberately written to confuse you. Bait and switch. Bingo! Promise one thing, say, zero percent interest. Then they up it to thirty percent. Bingo!

Melissa Hughes: But, isn't that illegal?

Jerry Espenson: Used to be. Used to have usury laws but the States wanted the credit card business, so poof! Gone! Bingo! Ever inquire about a car loan?

Melissa Hughes: Actually, yes. Once.

Melissa Hughes: Bingo!

Melissa Hughes: But I didn't buy the car.

Jerry Espenson: Doesn't matter. It's called 'Universal Default'. Credit bureaus share your information. All of it. Your credit card company just heard about your asking for a car loan. Bingo! They raise your rates. Why? Because they can.




Brad Chase: We went to law school together. I beat his ass in moot court. I licked him several times in criminal cases since. Let's just say that we're rivals.

Denny Crane: You licked a man's ass?




Shirley Schmidt: As a policy, if a pedophile killer confesses his crime you'll protect that secret?

Father Michael Ryan: I cannot break the confessional seal. It's canon law.

Shirley Schmidt: Is that stupid?

A.D.A. Frank Ginsberg: Objection.

Shirley Schmidt: I'm sorry, but the laws in this country to protect again child-abuse supersede doctor-patient privilege, lawyer-client privilege, but not priest-parishioner privilege? Has the Catholic Church earned some special exemption when it comes to pedophiles?




Father Michael Ryan: That's a cheap shot.

Shirley Schmidt: I've been known to take them. Tell us about the Papal Blessings.

Father Michael Ryan: Well. On that matter I, I was, uh… I was wayward. I apologize.

Shirley Schmidt: The Vatican issues Papal Blessings at about thirty dollars a pop. You decided to print them yourself and sell them directly, bypassing the middleman, who in this case, happens to be the Pope.

Father Michael Ryan: Yes. As, as I said, I was wayward there.

Shirley Schmidt: I'm just having a hard time reconciling; you'll steal from the Pope, but cloak yourself in canon law when it comes to protecting a pedophile.




Alan Shore: Wait a second. So, the deadbeats are the ones who pay off their debt?

Jerry Espenson: Bingo! Within the credit card industry they're called deadbeats because they don't make any money off of them. The ones who don't pay off, they're the preferred customers because they're the ones they make money off of. They target people they know won't be able to pay.




Judge Clark Brown: Mr Crane. Do not address the jury.

Denny Crane: Oh. Sorry. Brad. First question.

Brad Chase: I got involved because my colleague Denise Bauer came to me distraught that her housekeeper's child had been kidnapped and frustrated the police and FBI were making no progress.

Denny Crane: Second question.

Brad Chase: I went to a friend of mine Kevin Drummond at the FBI and asked him for help.

Denny Crane: Third question.

Brad Chase: He told me that while the FBI was limited by State action that private citizens had sometimes successfully taken things into their own hands.

Denny Crane: Fourth question.

A.D.A. Frank Ginsberg: Objection. He's not asking any questions.

Denny Crane: I told him last night the questions I was gonna ask him. Judge I'm just trying to speed things up for the jury who I know are already annoyed at even being here for this ridiculous prosecution.




Denny Crane: The brother told you about the priest?

Brad Chase: Yes.

Denny Crane: And that's when you went to the church and cut off his fingers?

Brad Chase: I swung an axe at his imported door knowing it cost a lot of money.

Denny Crane: How much?

Brad Chase: Nine thousand.

Denny Crane: Dollars?

Brad Chase: Dollars.

Denny Crane: For a door?

Brad Chase: He somehow could afford it.




Judge Clark Brown: Mr Crane!

Denny Crane: Call me Denny, Judge.

Judge Clark Brown: No! I will not call you Denny!




Shirley Schmidt: That was you not becoming the story?

Denny Crane: I was practically invisible.

Shirley Schmidt: What the hell was that about?

Denny Crane: The prosecutor wants to horrify the jury. We were diluting… the horro… scope.

Shirley Schmidt: To my money you trivialized it. You may have just alienated the jury.

Denny Crane: People like a happy ending. The child came home safe. We play the happy ending.

Shirley Schmidt: It's not that simple, Denny.

Denny Crane: Yes it is, Shirley. We're talking juries. It always comes down to simple. And, I mean, there's nobody simpler than me.




Paul Lewiston: Is he out of his mind?

Shirley Schmidt: Well, he's always out of it. Clearly it's where he's most comfortable.




Shirley Schmidt: We keep hearing about the rights of the accused in this country. What about the victims? What about his rights? We're supposed to say, "Sorry, Tito, we'd love to save you, but there are these rules?" There's a murder in this country every thirty-one minutes, a forcible rape every six minutes, a robbery every one minute. But, hey! Let's all band together and protect the constitutional principals that make this country great. Things clearly got ugly here. But a human life was at stake. With all due respect to the civil liberties of the suspect's brother, with great deference to canon law and Father Ryan's imported door and his fingers, the life of a four year old boy was at stake. Brad Chase saved that little boys life. It's that simple.




Attorney Melvin Palmer: Here's the thing. Let me tell you a little about me and why I chose to represent Prominence Bank. Like any other credit card service it's a business, sure. But it is a service. We help people who are short of cash. Help them make their rent so they don't get thrown out on the street. Help them make a car payment so they can get to work. Help them buy Christmas presents for their children during tough times.

Alan Shore: You're like Santa Claus.

Attorney Melvin Palmer: I can see you and I need to go out and shoot some ducks together.




Alan Shore: Is it true your company actually targets people with bad credit ratings?

Attorney Melvin Palmer: Well, we have an extremely complex marketing strategy, one that I'd be happy to take some time and explain to you.

Alan Shore: That's okay. I think I've got it. You find people in dire straits and market directly to them with the hope of forming a lifelong relationship. I had a former client who kind of operated his business the same way.

Attorney Melvin Palmer: Really? What line of work was he in?

Alan Shore: He sold heroin.




Alan Shore: So I could call you a loan shark and you'd be fine? When you charge your customers thirty percent interest, you're a loan shark.

Attorney Melvin Palmer: That term implies criminal conduct.

Alan Shore: It's not criminal because your parasitic lobbyists have penetrated both aisles of Congress. The credit card industry is more profitable that McDonalds, Microsoft and Walmart.

You've got yourself a multibillion dollar racket going, Mr Palmer.




Melissa Hughes: First of all, I just wanna say, "Thank you" which, of course, goes totally without saying, but I'm saying it anyway. Second, I will work here for free to pay off my legal fees if you want me to.

Alan Shore: I don't.

Melissa Hughes: Third, and this is not a come-on it is just a statement of fact. When you rattled off that whole 'you don't want the public to know' laundry list. That was the single sexiest thing I have ever seen a man do.

Alan Shore: You should see me when I do it naked.




Denny Crane: Can I ask you something, 'Friend to friend'?

Alan Shore: Of course.

Denny Crane: Shirley made this comment, 'don't make it about me'. Do I do that?

Alan Shore: Get outta town.

Denny Crane: Hm. Seriously. Do I act like I'm the only one in the room?

Alan Shore: Denny, one of the things I love about you is when we talk; often it's as if you're not even in the room.






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