Quotes About Justice

The Supreme Court, though, found that conducting the lineup without the presence of a lawyer violated Wade's right to counsel.

police officers have absolute immunity when they testify as witnesses, even when they commit perjury and even when their perjured testimony results in the conviction of an innocent person.

and all criminal defendants—are entitled to have their attorney present at lineups that occur after there has been an indictment. The Court forcefully stated that there "is grave potential for prejudice, intentional or not, in the pretrial lineup, which may not be capable of reconstruction at trial.

post-indictment lineup is a critical stage of the proceeding and that a criminal defendant has as much right to an attorney there as at the trial itself.

Roberts went even further and said that the exclusionary rule applies only where the value of deterring police misconduct outweighs the costs of releasing a potentially guilty person:

But why not, especially since the usual test for a waiver of one's rights is whether it is knowing as well as voluntary? Justice Stewart, writing for the Court, said candidly that that would make it too hard for police to conduct searches. He said that two competing concerns had to be balanced: law enforcement's need to perform such searches and the desire to prevent coercion.

In every case since then, without exception, the Court has rejected people's ability to sue federal officers.

Proof of knowledge of the right to refuse consent, Justice Stewart wrote, is not "a necessary prerequisite to demonstrating a 'voluntary' consent."6

Justice Stewart wrote that the way the search was done had nothing to do with the reliability of the evidence.

Justice Scalia wrote for the Court that former attorney general Ashcroft was protected by qualified immunity because there was no clearly established law that his conduct was unconstitutional.

Brown v. Allen, decided in 1953, the Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Frankfurter, held that a constitutional claim may be raised on habeas even though it had been raised, fully litigated, and decided in state court.

Erwin Chemerinsky

Carroll v. United States, in 1925, involved a search of a car without a warrant, for bootleg liquor.65 The Court, in an opinion written by Chief Justice Taft, explained that the mobility of cars justified allowing police to search them without needing a warrant because the "vehicle can be quickly moved out of the locality or jurisdiction in which the warrant must be sought."66

person represented by counsel has the right to have that attorney present at a post-indictment identification.

In Navarette v. California in 2014, the Court ruled that an anonymous tip that a person is driving erratically is a sufficient basis for a police stop.

Justice Thurgood Marshall wrote a strong dissent, making the crucial point that the majority's ruling meant that no one ever could sue to stop even the most outrageous of police practices.

The Court said that since she was a "reliable" witness, the identification was admissible.16

What had Wardlow done to create "reasonable suspicion"? He was in what the Court said was "an area known for heavy narcotics trafficking."38 That is another way of saying, it was a predominantly Black neighborhood. And he walked the other direction after seeing police cars.

Negroes are God's creatures also, with all due rights and freedoms. Slavery is a moral stain against us. If anything will keep white men from their heaven, it is this.

But I needed to do myself the justice of at least looking.

The level of advocacy on behalf of others is a rarity -- and sorely needed. The work of equality is the labour not of the few but the many, including those who have benefited and continue to benefit the most from an unequal system. Change that must take place on a broad social scale must be just that -- broadly social. Everyone has their part to play. But it is not for advocates to occupy spaces intended for the very people they are fighting for.

I had never been his equal. To him, perhaps, any deep acceptance of equality was impossible. He saw only those were there to be saved, and those who did the saving.

As [religious teachers] exclude reason and justice from their imaginary notions of religion, they also exclude it from the providence and moral government of God.

There is no surer sign of a society in decline than one that builds prisons faster than schools, as happens in many American states. In