Mary Shelley Quotes
All judges had rather that ten innocent should suffer than that one guilty should escape.
Shelley, Mary. Frankenstein. Lackington, Hughes, Harding, Mavor, & Jones, 1818.
He was one of the few “national security hawks” who was willing to place this issue in the public table. In the 21st Century, there were some Muslims living in Democratic countries who were or had just become radical Islamic extremist jihadist by religious belief and philosophy. Some would preach or advocate violence in terrorism against Democracy and the west. Many of these people with radical Islamic beliefs would give material aid and comfort to terrorists and some would themselves engage in terrorist activities themselves. When they did, it was too late to prevent tragedies. So there was this population of emotional and intellectual terrorists who could act on their beliefs at any moment. These are what Hayden referred to as the “not yet guilty”. Preventive detention could protect against serious terrorist attacks. But the legal system of virtually every democracy had no legal bases to incarcerate or move against anyone for his/her beliefs or speech. Criminal charges required action other than thoughts, beliefs or speech. But by waiting until there is terrorist action, the law enforcement authorities give up the ability to prevent the terrorist action. Some were advocating changes in this fundamental and traditional distinction of law enforcement.
This interesting historical quotation illustrates the fact that in almost every American generation there are those who believe that society has gone too far in protecting the rights of criminal suspects at the expense of law and order in the general society. This is nothing new. This is a classic argument given by those who would deny a defendant the Constitutional protection against self-incrimination. The belief that an innocent man has nothing to fear from the police is refuted by the many cases of innocent men being convicted by evidence they have given in the belief that they were innocent, and served long jail sentences only to later be proved by DNA evidence that they could not possibly have been guilty. Since Nott’s day, society has not only found many cases where honest error was made by the police or prosecutors, but many where there was venal prosecutorial misconduct and defendants were jailed even though the authorities were aware of evidence of innocence and kept it secret. There have been a number of these cases where a defendant was on death row and about to be executed when it was found he was innocent. Probably there have been men wrongly executed. See {629444} for a probable example.
Texas executes more people than the rest of the United States does. However, just before the debate an investigation disclosed 56 recent cases in Texas where the “criminals” were completely exonerated based on the work of some volunteer attorneys and law students. They were all released from jail where many had served decades for crimes they did not commit. 5 were released from Death Row—awaiting to be executed. See {635339}.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), which is considered an early example of science fiction. She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin and her mother was the philosopher and feminist activist Mary Wollstonecraft.
