Ernest Gaines Quotes

The goal is justice, not executions. We all want to make sure the process is fair and that the right person is punished. These recommendations are essential to that goal.

It is better that a guilty man should not be brought to trial than that he should be acquitted.

If you hang them all, you will get the guilty. But that's not the American way of doing things.

Were I ever alone in the dock, I would not want to be arraigned before our flawed tribunals, knowing my freedom could be forfeit as a result of political pressures. I would prefer a fair trial, under the shadow of the noose.

If one of our fellow citizens can be executed with so much doubt surrounding his guilt, then the death penalty system in our country is unjust and outdated.

The punishment of a criminal is an example to the rabble; but every decent man is concerned if an innocent person is condemned.

Believing a person deserves a defence is not the same as doing anything in your power to get him off scot-free.

Sentence first, verdict afterwards.

The second trial was a fair trial. I do not call it a second trial. I call it a fair trial, as opposed to the first trial, which was an unfair trial, a Roman holiday.

It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.

It is better to risk saving a guilty man than to condemn an innocent one.

No Man ought to be looked upon as guilty, before he has received his judicial Sentence; nor can the Laws deprive him of their Protection, before it is proved that he has forfeited all Right to it.

A person who is no longer with us has a rather difficult time proving his innocence …. In Texas and elsewhere in the country, people’s innocence is determined by their income.

It is better to destroy 100 innocent people than to let one guilty one escape.

I was very upset because I did not have a fair trial to prove my loyalty to this country.

I prefer a prison full of criminals than a graveyard full of innocent people.

I believe that everybody is entitled to a presumption of innocence.

There are so many laws that no one is safe from hanging.

Do not be merciful, but be just, for mercy is bestowed upon the guilty criminal, while Justice is all that the innocent man requires.

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

No man can be judged a criminal until he is found guilty; nor can society take from him the public protection until it has been proved that he has violated the conditions on which it was granted. What right, then, but that of power, can authorize the punishment of a citizen so long as there remains any doubt of his guilt?

I come from the liberal side of thinking: Better one guilty man should walk free than one innocent man found guilty.

The hungry judges soon the sentence sign, and wretches hang that jurymen may dine.

I don't want to put one innocent person to death to put 99 that are guilty to death. So philosophically I'm a tooth-for-tooth guy, but the reality is the death penalty as public policy is flawed.

This death sentence is not surprising. It had to be.