Zephyr Teachout Quotes

My first job out of law school was representing people on death row in North Carolina, where I often saw the impact of hasty prosecutions.

I've never been under the illusion that everybody on death row is innocent - far from it. My own guess is upwards of 90 percent are guilty. But a ten percent error rate if that's what it is, or even five percent, is really way too high.

We cannot allow the spectacle of constant executions to be swept under the rug. We know that already over 100 individuals who were put on death row have been released. And we should shudder to think how many people have been sent to their deaths that were innocent.

I don’t think its right to have a criminal justice system that puts innocent people to death.

For 14 years, I could not find volunteer lawyers capable of providing the legal assistance I needed to prove my innocence.

As long as you have capital punishment there is no guarantee that innocent people won't be put to death.

We've sent 130 men to death row to be executed in this country, at least 130 that we know of, who have later have been exonerated because they were either innocent, or they were not fairly tried. That's 130 people that we've locked down on death row. And they've spent years there.

Ask any experienced defense lawyer: the real risks are for an accused person who is innocent. A guilty defendant has many more options available.

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.

I’m not necessarily against the death penalty. But I am damn sure against the wrong man getting executed.

The death penalty scares the hell out of me. We now see about one out of eight errors in these convictions.

Circumstances may accumulate so strongly even against an innocent man, that directed, sharpened, and pointed, they may slay him.

I'd like to think that if I were in prison for a crime I didn't commit, someone would be trying to get me the hell out of there.

I was put on death row because of hate.

Death row prisoners face enormous challenges in finding lawyers who will assist them.

I don't believe in the death penalty. I believe that there are other people as we speak right now in prison, wrongfully accused, who could serve such a fate. That is injustice at its greatest.

Isn't all mankind ultimately executed for a crime it never committed?

But I really think it's a very unfortunate part of our judicial system and I would feel much, much better if more states would really consider whether they think the benefits outweigh the very serious potential injustice, because in these cases the emotions are very, very high on both sides and to have stakes as high as you do in these cases, there is a special potential for error. We cannot ignore the fact that in recent years a disturbing number of inmates on death row have been exonerated.

Death row is a nightmare to serial killers and ax murderers. For an innocent man, it's a life of mental torture that the human spirit is not equipped to survive.

Of one thing, however, I am certain. Just as an execution without adequate safeguards is unacceptable, so too is an execution when the condemned prisoner can prove that he is innocent. The execution of a person who can show that he is innocent comes perilously close to simple murder.

The death penalty is as random as being struck by lightning.

In representing criminal defendants—especially guilty ones—it is often necessary to take the offensive against the government: to put the government on trial for its misconduct.

These exonerations do not indicate that there is something wrong with the Texas Criminal Justice System. They demonstrate that the system is working. We have a lengthy and methodical process of appeals. And that is a great and good mark for Texas.

I have lost no sleep over the possibility that an innocent man might be executed.

… when it is shown to us that a person is serving an illegal sentence our obligation is to direct that proper steps be taken to correct the wrong done, without regard to the character of a particular defendant or to the possible effect on others who might also want to challenge the legality of their sentences as they have the right to do 'at any time' under Rule 35. If it has any relevance at all, the fact that there may be other prisoners in this country's jails serving illegal sentences would seem to me to make it all the more imperative that we grant appropriate relief in this case rather than search for some obviously dubious excuse to deny this petitioner's claim..