Andrew Vachss Quotes

Well, I - all cases to me have interest. Every case is important to somebody, the people litigating that case. But the most difficult case for me is the case where one person says a, the other person says b, and you just don't know for certain who is not telling you the truth.

I don't think the law exists to arrive at the truth. If it did, we wouldn't have exclusionary rules, we wouldn't have presumptions of innocence, we wouldn't have proof beyond reasonable doubt. There's an enormous difference between the role of truth in law and the role of truth in science. In law, truth is one among many goals.

It takes a long time to learn that a courtroom is the last place in the world for learning the truth.

Trials are no longer about freeing the innocent, punishing the guilty, and making restitution to the injured. They have devolved into a contest over who will win.

Our entire legal system bets a great deal on the proposition that this ‘adversary’ system is the least imperfect way to develop all the truth: the corollary is that we must look on partisanship not as an evil but as a part of the system's working.

Both sides should demand a speedy trial.

The law is agnostic about truth.

I'm in the real world, some people try to steal from me, and I stop them, frequently, take them to court. I love a good lawsuit. It's fun.

Scientists search for truth. Philosophers search for morality. A criminal trial searches for only one result: proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

The trial of a case is a three-legged stool - a judge and two advocates.

If it doesn't fit, you must acquit.

At some point the law must prevail and the lawyers must go home.

I have faith in the judicial system.

Life as a barrister never was terribly real to me, and courtrooms were always a place of fantasy to me. They had nothing to do with discovering the truth, really, of course.

North Carolinians know what a fair trial looks like. It includes witnesses. It includes documents.

Whether a man is guilty or innocent, we have to find that out by due process of law.

Courtroom dramas can be boring.

All we can do is keep going up against then as long as Ray is alive because when he dies it will not be possible to establish the truth of his innocence in a court of law.

I have no better way of judging guilt or innocence than anyone else.

Trial. A formal inquiry designed to prove and put upon record the blameless characters of judges, advocates and jurors.

Justice can only be dispensed when you have all the facts in front of you.

The United States and the European Union do want to have a rule of law, and that rule of law should be for a fair trial. And that fair trial needs to have an impartial jury.

The judicial system is the most expensive machine ever invented for finding out what happened and what to do about it.

I believe in my heart Simpson is guilty.

I will go to what they call a court. Only they call it a court.