Justice & Law Quote by Hunter S. Thompson

Going to court is terrifying; going with counsel who despises you is existentially bleak. Thompson’s line lands because it treats “trial” less as a legal event than as a cultural referendum, where the defendant isn’t merely accused of an act but of being a certain kind of person. The phrase “life-style” (hyphen and all) is doing dirty work: it evokes the era’s shorthand for hippies, freaks, addicts, queers, drifters, radicals - anyone whose daily choices read, to a straight-backed establishment, as moral sabotage.

“Crime in Progress” is the dagger. Thompson borrows the language of policing - the ongoing offense, the suspicion that never expires - and snaps it onto identity. The subtext is that the system isn’t neutral; it’s interpretive. A lawyer who sees you as a walking offense will translate every detail (clothes, friends, habits, tone) into evidence, not to defend you but to tidy you into a cautionary tale. Thompson is warning that representation is ideology: your advocate’s private disgust becomes your public narrative.

The intent is also self-protective and accusatory in classic Thompson fashion. He’s not hand-wringing about procedure; he’s indicting the respectable professionals who claim to serve justice while quietly serving class and cultural conformity. The humor is sour, almost throwaway, but it’s precise: “not a happy prospect” understates the disaster, a deadpan shrug in the face of institutional hostility. In Thompson’s world, the courtroom is another arena where the counterculture is punished for existing, and the scariest opponent may be the person paid to stand beside you.