As a cop, I dealt with every kind of bum and criminal. They all have more integrity than some Hollywood people.
Joseph Wambaugh

Civil servants take forever to do anything.
Joseph Wambaugh

Every time I write a nonfiction book I get sued.
Joseph Wambaugh

I certainly believe it's over for the jury system, but we won't admit it for a while.
Joseph Wambaugh

I enjoy adapting my own work, or anybody's work. I like to adapt books.
Joseph Wambaugh

I enjoy doing the research of nonfiction; that gives me some pleasure, being a detective again.
Joseph Wambaugh

I hadn't done anything in six years; I was just vegetating.
Joseph Wambaugh

I'm sure I took some licks at the system, and at trials and lawyers in general. I've seen enough of them for so many years both as a cop and a defendant in defamation cases.
Joseph Wambaugh

If you take 67 brush fires times 10 years, that's almost 700 right there. Those brush fires are incredibly dangerous, all those homes going down proved that.
Joseph Wambaugh

Jury selection is strictly an emotional process. They're looking for people they can manipulate. Both sides are.
Joseph Wambaugh


No one I know of has ever had this experience-where you had to sit and wait and wait for a DNA test to come back just so you can write the last page of the book.
Joseph Wambaugh

Probably 95 percent of the things that are written never get on the screen.
Joseph Wambaugh

The O.J. Simpson case, they had no understanding of that DNA evidence, and didn't want to.
Joseph Wambaugh

The Onion Field made a real writer. And then I knew it was over, I couldn't be a cop anymore.
Joseph Wambaugh

The Onion Field, that one got pretty close to me because I was a cop when it happened. I saw some of the indifference that my police department showed to the surviving officer.
Joseph Wambaugh

The serial arsonist is the most difficult to apprehend because the evidence is burned up.
Joseph Wambaugh

The time has come for professional jurors.
Joseph Wambaugh

Today, lawyers are attacking more; they're attacking everything. A good example is the O.J. Simpson case.
Joseph Wambaugh

What I didn't know was that if I didn't stand with my back to the wall, Hollywood people would unscrew my ass and sell it down the river.
Joseph Wambaugh

What is it about the component of fire? People have written about it. People have wondered about it.
Joseph Wambaugh