Felix Frankfurter Quotes

This is really a pretty good system you have here. What do you call it? "Due process". We're very proud of it.

The Constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process.

Rule of law is based on probable cause.

Due process is a growth too sturdy to succumb to the infection of the least ingredient of error.

The acid test of any legal system is not the greatness or the grandeur of its ideal concepts, but whether, in fact, it is able to produce order and justice.

The whole idea of equal justice under law means that you've got to play by the rules. It has nothing to do with the underlying subject matter. You just tell 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.

A first principle of Anglo-American jurisprudence is that the ends do not justify the means.

A fair judicial system takes time to work.

There is a problem. We do have this little thing called the Constitution.

We do not sit like a kadi under a tree dispensing justice according to considerations of individual expediency

The American people must be able to trust that their courts and law enforcement will uphold, protect, and defend their constitutional rights.

We all need good laws, and an independent, impartial, and efficient judiciary to verify the constitutionality of those laws.

I simply apply the law fairly and equally to all our citizens.

Who thinks the law has anything to do with justice? It's what we have because we can't have justice.

The American people have a right to except that the rule of law will guarantee that even if we don't like the policy, that it's done properly.

I believe I am strengthening the Constitution with my case.

Sentence first, verdict afterwards.

Let's create a legal system that can work.

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

And it is no less true, that personal security and private property rest entirely upon the wisdom, the stability, and the integrity of the courts of justice.

I think that all of us, as Americans, are due due process and have a right to a fair trial, and have a right to be considered innocent until proven guilty. I think that is the American way and it's the foundation upon which this country was built.

Doing a thing by law, or according to law, is only carrying the law into execution. And punishing a man by, or according to, the sentence or judgment of his peers, is only carrying that sentence or judgment into execution.

My father thought, and now I think too, that the system of democracy is entirely based upon the system of justice. If we do not have a system of justice that people believe in, the system of democracy will fail.

It's a very frightening time when something as basic as due process is seen as somehow radical.