Alan Dershowitz Quotes About Justice
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Imagine a legal system in which lawyers were equated with the clients they defended and were condemned for representing controversial or despised clients.
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I have made a career out of arguing that we shouldn't be criminalizing political differences. I've made a career out of arguing that the grand jury is an abusive institution. I have made a career out of arguing that we shouldn't stretch and expand the criminal law. I'm not going to change it because you think these are abnormal times. When Thomas Jefferson told the Justice Department that they had to prosecute Aaron Burr, and that he was going to have the chief justice impeached unless he found Aaron Burr guilty, those were special times too.
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There is no perfect justice, just as there is no absolute in ethics. But there is perfect injustice, and we know it when we see it.
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The defendant wants to hide the truth because he's generally guilty. The defense attorney's job is to make sure the jury does not arrive at that truth.
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Judges are the weakest link in our system of justice and they are also the most protected.
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Law is an imperfect profession in which success can rarely be achieved without some sacrifice of principle. Thus all practicing lawyers -- and most others in the profession -- will necessarily be imperfect, especially in the eyes of young idealists. There is no perfect justice, just as there is no absolute in ethics. But there is perfect injustice, and we know it when we see it.
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If torture is going to be administered as a last resort in the ticking-bomb case, to save enormous numbers of lives, it ought to be done openly, with accountability, with approval by the president of the United States or by a Supreme Court justice.
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A criminal trial is never about seeking justice for the victim. If it were, there could be only one verdict: guilty.
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I never place limits on the potential success of my students. If they're going into acting, they're going to win the Oscar... If they're going into law, they're going to be chief justice.
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Nobody wants justice.
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In representing criminal defendants - especially guilty ones - it is often necessary to take the offensive against the government: to put the government on trial for its misconduct. In law, as in sports, the best defense is often a good offense. The courtroom oath - to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth - is applicable only to witnesses... because the American justice system is built on a foundation of not telling the whole entire truth.
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In our criminal justice system, we say it's better for 10 guilty people to go free than for even one innocent person to be wrongly convicted.
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If we move away from the American tradition of lawyers defending those with whom they vehemently disagree -- as we temporarily did during the McCarthy period -- we weaken our commitment to the rule of law... So beware of an approach which limits advocacy to that which is approved by the standards of political correctness.
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I will continue to fight for justice, fairness, and constitutional rights until my dying breath.
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This is not about celebrity justice, this is about the rights of the children.
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Let no one ever shy away from the claim that Jews have power, that Jews have influence. We have learned the terrible lesson of history; that unless we have influence and power, disproportionate to our small numbers - immoral results will occur. We need power. And we must continue to use our power. Power which we earned, power which no one gave us on a silver platter, power which we worked hard for - use that power in the interests of justice.
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