Quotes About Justice

In that case, the truck driver took the stand, swore to tell the truth, then lied for three hours. He said Gretchen crossed the center line and caused the wreck, made it sound as though she was trying to kill herself. The coal companies are clever and they never send down one truck at a time. They travel in pairs, so there's always a witness ready to testify.

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.

as well as depressing, but each day I feel like I'm making a small difference. We walked a kid out of prison last week. His parents were waiting by the gate, and everyone was in tears, including me. FYI—one

Trucks hauling coal that weighs a hundred tons, racing across old, twenty-ton bridges still used by school buses, and absolutely ignoring every rule of the road. If there's an accident, it's usually bad. In West Virginia, they're killing one innocent driver per week. The trucker swears he was doing nothing wrong, his buddy backs him up, there are no other witnesses, so the jury falls in line with Big Coal.

Twenty-two years later the case is even colder and the police have all but given up. Once we realized that they were getting nowhere, I vowed to try everything to find his killer.

38 million, the judge awarded $10 million—

can't do that, Greg, not now. If we walk away, the bad guys win again. Hugo died for nothing. BJC would be a joke. No. I'm still in.

God help us, if ever in this great country we turn our heads while those who have not had fair trials are executed. That almost happened in this case.

Los juicios no siempre tienen que ver con agravios e injusticias; a veces se utilizan como púlpitos.

We want justice, and quickly. And justice is whatever we deem it to be on a case-by-case basis. It's just as well that we don't believe in fair trials because we damned sure don't have them. The presumption of innocence is now the presumption of guilt. The burden of proof is a travesty because the proof is often lies. Guilt beyond a reasonable doubt means if he probably did it, then let's get him off the streets.

You see, Mr. Snowden, the Constitution says, quite clearly, that you cannot imprison a poor person for failing to pay his debts. I don't expect you to know this because you work for a bunch of crooks. However, trust me on this, the federal judges understand it because they've read the Constitution, most of them anyway. Debtors' prisons are illegal. Ever heard of the Equal Protection Clause?

I sued the City for "excessive force" and got a million bucks. Not one dime of which, by the way, came out of the pockets of the cops who planned the raid. As always, it came from the taxpayers. The criminal charges against Sonny were later dismissed, so the raid was a complete waste of time, money, and energy.

If the video camera was loaded with a tape, it was never seen. If Detective Smith made a report of the interview, it was never produced in the legal proceedings that followed.

Our prisons are packed. Our streets are filled with drugs. Who's winning the war? We've lost our minds.

It's just as well that we don't believe in fair trials because we damned sure don't have them. The presumption of innocence is now the presumption of guilt. The burden of proof is a travesty because the proof is often lies. Guilt beyond a reasonable doubt means if he probably did it, then let's get him off the streets.

was about to look bad regardless of what happened. He would sit next to the defendant, stand next to him, consult with him, speak for him, and so on. The clear and obvious guilt of Drew Gamble was about to rub off on his lawyer.

Drew nodded and might have spoken. "Please speak up, sir," Noose almost yelled into his microphone. Jake looked down at his client. "Yes sir." "And you are represented by the Honorable Jake Brigance, right?" "Yes sir." "And you have been indicted by the grand jury of Ford County for the murder

I was never a bully and I never started a fight. And I didn't like to fight, but if the other guy pushed me around, then I hit him back.

And, you are no doubt familiar with the 1983 Supreme Court decision, the name escapes me right now, in which the Court ruled that before a person can be thrown in jail for not paying a fine it must be proven that he or she was willfully not paying. In other words, he could pay but he refused. All this and more, right?

I don't trust judges. Perhaps it's the nature of my profession. I like knockouts, not decisions.

Why bother with a trial? If the cops can't convict with evidence, they use the media to convict with suspicion.

He presided over murder trials, studied forensics and knew more about the science than the experts, and, most importantly, he knew how much evidence was needed to convict. A helluva lot! Beyond a reasonable doubt. Far more than any low-paid cop had been able to find along his graveyard trail.

Repeat something enough and folks will start to believe it. Mr. Mount had always taken the position that the presumption of innocence is a joke nowadays.

When boxed-in and bleeding, prosecutors often become wildly creative with new theories of guilt.