Justice & Law Quote by Jack Kevorkian

Kevorkian’s line is a small grenade lobbed at the legal system: “I will go to what they call a court. Only they call it a court.” He’s not refusing judgment; he’s refusing the premise that the proceeding deserves the dignity of its own name. The repetition is the point. “Court” is supposed to imply deliberation, fairness, a venue where truth gets an honest hearing. By insisting it’s only “what they call” a court, he frames the trial as theater staged by institutions already committed to a verdict: a ritual of legitimacy rather than a search for it.

The subtext is a power struggle over language. Kevorkian, a physician-activist turned national lightning rod for assisted dying, understood that whoever controls the labels controls the moral story. Prosecutors call it murder; he calls it mercy. The state calls it justice; he hears punishment dressed up as procedure. His syntax makes that suspicion audible: the first sentence sounds compliant, almost civic. The second sentence pulls the rug out, converting consent into contempt.

Context matters: Kevorkian didn’t behave like a defendant trying to disappear into legal counsel. He courted publicity, challenged prosecutors, and forced the public to look at the messy intersection of suffering, autonomy, and state authority. This line fits that strategy. It’s not a legal argument; it’s a cultural one, aimed at an audience beyond the judge. He wants you to feel that the system isn’t merely judging his acts, but policing a taboo the culture can’t admit it’s already negotiating in private.