A Defendant Quotes

#1. A defendant on trial for a specific crime is entitled to his day in court, not in a stadium or a city or nationwide arena.

Tom C. Clark

#2. I can't do no literary work for the rest of this year because I'm meditating another lawsuit and looking around for a defendant.

Mark Twain

#3. 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

#4. How many times would a defendant's lawyer enter the courtroom before a session and ask each of the male clerks and paralegals around me, 'Are you the assistant in charge?' while I sat there invisible to him at the head of the table?

Sonia Sotomayor

#5. [Jurors who are opposed to capital punishment are] more likely to believe that a defendant's failure to testify is indicative of his guilt, more hostile to the insanity defense, more mistrustful of defense attorneys and less concerned about the danger of erroneous convictions.

Thurgood Marshall

#6. Here we have a situation where a defendant in a case agrees to an interview with Dan Rather. It happened to be not confidential. But it was an interview with Dan Rather.

Floyd Abrams

#7. Georgia law at the time allowed a defendant to make an unsworn statement to the jury with no cross-examination allowed. Gallogly started reading his statement to the jury but talked so fast and so low that Reuben Arnold suggested he stand directly in front of the jury box, which he did. Gallogly met

David Beasley

#8. To force a lawyer on a defendant can only lead him to believe that the law contrives against him.

Potter Stewart

#9. When you come in to court as a plaintiff or as a defendant, it is terribly important that you look up at the bench and feel that that person represents you and will understand you, that that person is reflective of our community and of our society.

Michael Bloomberg

#10. We are like a judge confronted by a defendant who declines to answer, and we must determine the truth from the circumstantial evidence.

Alfred Wegener

#11. But in the absence of eye-witness there's always a doubt, sometimes only the shadow of a doubt. The law says 'reasonable doubt', but I think a defendant's entitled to the shadow of doubt. There's always the possibility, no matter how improbable, that he's innocent.

Harper Lee

#12. The higher someone's profile, the easier it is for a defendant to trade him up to the feds. Mr. Big is always a better catch than Mr. Small.

Howie Carr

#13. Many decisions are based on beliefs concerning the likelihood of uncertain events such as the outcome of an election, the guilt of a defendant, or the future value of the dollar.

Daniel Kahneman

#14. I got the chance to argue my first case in Supreme Court, a criminal case arising in Alabama that involved the right of a defendant to counsel at a critical stage in a capital case before a trial.

Constance Baker Motley

#15. A strenuous soul hates cheap success. It is the ardor of the assailant that makes the vigor of the defendant.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

#16. This is an aspect of crime stories I never fully appreciated until I became one: it is so ruinously expensive to mount a defense that, innocent or guilty, the accusation is itself a devastating punishment. Every defendant pays a price.

William Landay

#17. Since i was the only Black woman sitting in the defendant's chair, of course he identified me. We protested the procedure, but the judge admitted his testimony anyway. We finally did arrange for a lineup, and, of course, the other so-called witnesses picked out another woman.

Assata Shakur

#18. A sentence of death and infamy was often founded on the slight and suspicious evidence of a child or a servant: the guilt [of the defendant] was presumed by the judges [due to the nature of the charge], and paederasty became the crime of those to whom no crime could be imputed.

Edward Gibbon

#19. If rhyme is a crime, my mic is my co-defendant.

Cormega

#20. Detective Segel, the evidence shows that you experienced a penile erection when the defendant opened fire. Would you describe that as an appropriate response?

Greg Egan

#21. And every defendant, regardless of how despicable the person or his crime, is entitled to a lawyer. Most laymen don't understand this and don't care. I don't care either. This is my job.

John Grisham

#22. We should not televise trials. There's only one purpose for a criminal trial. It's to determine whether or not the defendant committed the crime. Anything that interferes or has the potential of interfering with that should automatically be prohibited.

Vincent Bugliosi

#23. I am the prosecutor. I represent the state. I am here to present to you the evidence of a crime. Together you will weigh this evidence. You will deliberate upon it. You will decide if it proves the defendant's guilt.

Scott Turow

#24. This Court has never held that the Constitution forbids the execution of a convicted defendant who has had a full and fair trial but is later able to convince a habeas court that he is 'actually' innocent.

Antonin Scalia

#25. A jury is more apt to be unbiased and independent than a court, but they very seldom stand up against strong public clamor. Judges naturally believe the defendant is guilty.

Clarence Darrow

#26. Ask any experienced defense lawyer: the real risks are for an accused person who is innocent. A guilty defendant has many more options available.

Andrew Vachss

#27. His presence and testimony highlighted the unfairness of expecting an indigent defendant to get a fair trial without giving him access to forensic experts. Barney had requested such assistance months earlier, and Judge Jones had declined.

John Grisham

#28. The grand jury, composed of 12 eminent New Orleans citizens, heard our evidence and indicted the defendant for participation in a conspiracy to assassinate John Kennedy.

Jim Garrison

#29. If the defendant be a man of straw, who is to pay the costs?

Charles Dickens

#30. I have yet to see a death case among the dozen coming to the Supreme Court on eve-of-execution stay applications in which the defendant was well represented at trial ... People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg

#31. ( a court officer's assessment of a particularly obnoxious young defendant...)

"His mother shoulda ate him while his head was still soft."

This kills me every time...

Paddy Green

#32. Jurors realize that instead of having to make that terrible decision (voting for the death penalty), they can vote to put someone in prison and ensure that defendant is no longer a harm to society. It makes it easier for them to return a verdict of life without the possibility of parole.

Robert Falcon Scott

#33. The prosecution makes all the important decisions: what's charged, how much is charged, whether you can get a decent offer. Every defendant becomes an informant today.

Lynne Stewart

#34. Why should the court impose a judgment in a case in which the SEC alleges a serious securities fraud, but the defendant neither admits nor denies wrongdoing?

Jed S. Rakoff

#35. The Washington State Supreme Court on Thursday announced a two year suspension for a lawyer caught having jailhouse sex with a triple murder defendant she was representing. Haha! Jokes on you, dummies ... I'm not really a lawyer.

Tina Fey

#36. Most of the time, perhaps 99 percent of the time, the defendant is guilty; his screams are the final protest of a human being about to lost his most precious possession, his freedom.

Elizabeth F. Loftus

#37. The great joy of being a prosecutor is that you don't take whatever case walks in the door. You evaluate the case; you make your best judgement. You only go forward if you believe that the defendant is guilty.

Merrick Garland

#38. If you're a prosecutor, and you believe the defendant is guilty, you only talk about ultimate truth, but not intermediate truth. If you're the defense attorney, you care deeply about intermediate truth, but you tend to neglect ultimate truth.

Alan Dershowitz

#39. Nobody supposes that doctors are less virtuous than judges;
but a judge whose salary and reputation depended on whether
the verdict was for plaintiff or defendant, prosecutor or prisoner,
would be as little trusted as a general in the pay of the enemy.

George Bernard Shaw