John Grisham Quotes
Every time when there is an exoneration, and there have been hundreds of them, and somebody walks out of jail after years, people ask, “how could this happen?” …. State sanctioned killing is just wrong.
He was referring to exonerations for capital crimes like murder. He had written a book about a case where a man who was later proved innocent was reprieved only 5 days before his execution.
John Grisham, Attorney and Novelist, Mississippi State Legislator, Interview, The Charlie Rose Show, October 13, 2006
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The Senator was referring to the large number of people who had been exonerated by DNA evidence while on Death Row.
The exonerated based on the investigative work of some volunteer attorneys and law students. None of the miscarriages of justice were found or discovered by any law enforcement personnel, prosecutors, judges or officials of Texas. All the exonerated were released from jail where many had served decades for crimes they did not commit. 5 were released from Death Row—awaiting to be executed. Perry’s logic was that there was no problem because the 56 were released. For him, innocent people serving decades in Jail and sometimes waiting to be executed, did not constitute a problem. Of course, he assumed that the 56 cases of exhortation were the only cases of wrongful convictions in Texas. See {635340}.
Mistakes in the criminal justice system have been with us from the birth of the nation.
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}.
Einstein had changed his mind. He like almost everyone else at the time favored the death penalty, but in 1927 came to the new conclusion for the same reasons that many American politicians stated 70 years later. He had no compunctions against capital punishment for murderers who were dangers to society, but the potential error of the justice system led him to oppose state sanctioned execution. At the time the number of errors in capital cases that had been demonstrated were few. But as a scientist, Einstein knew that all human endeavors were prone to error. He was a strong law and order supporter however—see {588606}.
Adopted by the original Edinburgh Review Magazine as its motto.
He was describing a real case in Canada. There as well as the United State, for those who oppose capital punishment give as their main reason the mistakes made by the criminal justice system, and the innocent people who have been executed.
This quotation is a great example of the difficulty of deciding some of the major Constitutional issues. Most reasonable people believe that Rehnquist certainly has a point. On the other hand, critics observe that this quotation essentially says that it is OK to convict an innocent person if it cost too much or be too much trouble to do so. Reasonable people would also agree that this objection has much merit also. So the judicial system is stuck with deciding when the cost or trouble is too much. There will never, can never, be a clear cut answer.
John Ray Grisham Jr. is an American novelist, attorney, politician, and activist, best known for his popular legal thrillers. His books have been translated into 42 languages and published worldwide.
