Barry Scheck Quotes

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

The law isn't justice. It's a very imperfect mechanism. If you press exactly the right buttons and are also lucky, justice may show up in the answer. A mechanism is all the law was ever intended to be.

In reality, those rare few cases with good forensic evidence are the ones that make it to court.

Emotional truths woven by lawyers in the court of law are apparently more important than the truths of actual events. I have grown to fear for those whose innocence became trapped within the legal system.

I find it deeply upsetting when I see justice not being served. How do we as human beings deal with the unknown? The West Memphis Three trial is a joke on so many different levels.

Let the guilty bury the innocent, and let no one change the evidence

Professionalism in law has brought us the O.J. Simpson case in lieu of justice.

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

The judge is found guilty when a criminal is acquitted.

There are reasons to doubt that our criminal justice system is fundamentally just.

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.

All lawyers are the natural enemies of the police.

All judges had rather that ten innocent should suffer than that one guilty should escape

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.

It is easier to learn to fly by flapping one's arms than it is to get a district attorney to admit having sent an innocent person to prison.

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.

The Supreme Court has made it nearly impossible to prove race discrimination in the criminal justice system.

Don't kid yourself: The justice system is a business. It's about money.

I think there are lots of those moments when we meet people - listeners at a meet-and-greet - and they tell us that they've changed their major to forensic science, or criminal justice, or they've become a victim's advocate.

The arrival of DNA testing has brought new dimensions to the investigation of crime. It has brought resolution to old cases where past investigators were unable to uncover the truth. It has brought justice in new cases where once the truth might never have been known.

Forensic techniques are enormously useful in a wide range of fields outside the criminal justice system.

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

Justice is merely incidental to law and order. Law and order is what covers the whole picture. Justice is part of it, but it can't be separated as a single thing.

The civil justice system is a backup system when the criminal justice system fails.