Law at Troynovant:
edicts on law, legal institutions, juries;
lawmen & law enforcement;
listed by Title
  

See Constitution at Troynovant for history and issues relating to the American founding documents: the Declaration of Independence & U.S. Constitution.

See Detection at Troynovant for detective stories, or other items in which the law provides only background or support.
  

"Wow, that was close," Gloot breathed as silence descended again. "Those boys are the City Guard. They don't mess around."

"Permanent cadre?" Retief asked.

"Right. Eight on, eight off. Of course, most of 'em got off-duty jobs with the major mobs; but when shift time arrives they fall in for duty, even if the mob happens to be in the middle of a shoot-out with the guard at the time."

"That could be a trifle confusing."

"Yeah, but they got ground rules. When the whistle blows, there's a five-minute time-out while the cops and robbers change sides."

"A civilized system," Retief conceded.

Keith Laumer
Retief's Ransom  (1971)

  
[Vienna. The court of justice.]

Angelo:

We must not make a scarecrow of the law,
Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,
And let it keep one shape till custom make it
Their perch, and not their terror.

William Shakespeare
Measure for Measure, 2.1.1-4

  
"You go over there [Plaquemines Parish] to look up a title on land for a client that's an outsider and has a suit against an insider, and you find old books of deeds handwritten on parchment dating back to the seventeenth century. But when you come to the page about the land in dispute, it's typewritten on brand-new paper. You ask the parish clerk what happened, and he says, 'Cockroaches ate the old page so bad we had to copy it out and replace it'."

[The lawyer's] admiration was as pronounced as his taste for pie a la mode.

A. J. Liebling
The Earl of Louisiana  (1961)

  
You promis'd once, a progeny divine
Of Romans, rising from the Trojan line,
In after times should hold the world in awe,
And to the land and ocean give the law.

Virgil
The Aeneid, I.322-325
translated by John Dryden