Runaway Jury (2003)

Gene Hackman: Rankin Fitch

Photos 

Quotes 

• Rankin Fitch : You think your average juror is King Solomon? No, he's a roofer with a mortgage. He wants to go home and sit in his Barcalounger and let the cable TV wash over him. And this man doesn't give a single, solitary droplet of shit about truth, justice or your American way.

• Rankin Fitch : Gentlemen, trials are too important to be left up to juries.

• Nicholas Easter : Goodbye, Fitch.

  Rankin Fitch : Well, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait... How did you swing 'em, huh? How did you swing 'em your way? I hear you got ten votes. How'd you do that?

  Nicholas Easter : [shrugs]  I didn't swing anything. I just stopped you from stealing the thing. We let 'em vote their hearts. That means you lose. Enjoy your drink.

• Rankin Fitch : What do you hope to achieve if you win? You gonna bring Jacob Wood back to life? No. You just ensure that his wife goes to the cemetery in a better car, and that the heel that she snaps on the way to the graveside belongs to a $1,200 shoe. You get your name in the paper. But Jacob Wood and all the other gun violence victims remain rotting in their crypts.

• Nicholas Easter : So, what? I'm supposed to convince you that I have them, right?

  Rankin Fitch : Oh, I think you've probably got them, or-or you will have. I just wanna' know why.

  Nicholas Easter : Money.

  Rankin Fitch : Safer ways for a sharp kid like you to make money. What's the real reason?

  Nicholas Easter : Business, politics, sports... you tell me what *isn't* rigged? I mean, is there even such a thing as an objective jury, Mr. Fitch?

  Rankin Fitch : [chuckles]  Not if I can help it.

  Nicholas Easter : Then why should all the lawyers and guys like you make all the profit?

  Rankin Fitch : You don't have much faith in the Law!

  Nicholas Easter : I'm agnostic.

  Rankin Fitch : [laughs]  I knew there was something I liked about you.

• Rankin Fitch : ...the thing of it is, I don't give a shit. What's more... I never have.

• Rankin Fitch : Somebody add "class-clown" to Mr. Easter's ever expanding resume.

• Rankin Fitch : I must say, I'm impressed, Mr. Kerr...

  Nicholas Easter : Easter.

  Rankin Fitch : "Easter." Correct... I didn't see you coming. Ovbiously I, uh, underestimated you. And as a rule, I don't do that. Make damn sure... you don't underestimate me.

• Wendell Rohr : Is that why you're doing this? To protect the constitution, is that it?

  Rankin Fitch : Of course not. I'm in it to win.

  Wendell Rohr : Oh.

  Rankin Fitch : Just like you are.

  Wendell Rohr : Yeah.

  Rankin Fitch : Because that's what I was hired to do.

  Wendell Rohr : Uh huh.

  Rankin Fitch : Everything else is colored bubbles.

  Wendell Rohr : Colored bubbles! Colored bubbles? A system that calls for twelve people to sit and listen to testimony of witnesses, fella, and that includes my witness, who you've disappeared!

  Rankin Fitch : If you're relying on testimony to win this case, you've already lost it.

• Rankin Fitch : Ah, I hate Baptists almost as much as I hate Democrats.

• Rankin Fitch : Everybody has a secret they don't want you to find.

• Rankin Fitch : ...you're losing me my jury!