Tom Tully: Tom Starett

Quotes 

• Tom Starett : Your husband was found guilty, Mrs. Montgomery.

  Lydia Montgomery : If anyone should know about guilt, I'd say you'd be the man, judge.

• Tom Starett : Something like this makes a man look at himself hard. That's what I've been doing. It isn't a very pretty view. Being a judge was hard. Being a drunk was easy.

  Shane : Those days are over, Tom.

  Tom Starett : No, they're not, Shane. You know I always want you to go into that saloon and get a soda pop for Joey? 'Cause there's something still in me that'd like to take all that whiskey and open it up and never stop pouring. Something still in me that'd like to take all that booze and build a fortress against the world with high walls and a thick roof.

  Shane : Same things you need for a tomb.

  Tom Starett : Y'know, Shane, a lot of times I've thought we're a lot alike, you and me. With me it's the bottle. With you it's that gun.

• Tom Starett : Why did I hang him? That was another part of the flaw. Evidence against him was overwhelming, and the jury came back in twenty minutes. My duty under the law was clear. Oh, sure, I'd been drinking, but I wasn't that drunk. I knew the law was functioning in that blind way she has to condemn an innocent man.

• Lydia Montgomery : You were too drunk to care!

  Tom Starett : Yes, that was my part of the flaw. That's why I quit the bench. I couldn't face up to sending any more men to their deaths. One murder doesn't justify another, even if the law pretends that it does. Even if society demands it. Revenge is wrong... That's part of it, Shane. I sentenced a man - an innocent man - to be hanged.