Jacques Verges Quotes

I always received much more satisfaction as a defense attorney in obtaining an acquittal for a client than I ever have as a D.A. in obtaining a conviction. All my interests and sympathies tend to be on the side of the individual as opposed to the state.

Our constitutionally-based criminal justice system places a high value on protecting the innocent. Among its central tenets is the idea that it is better to let a guilty person go free than to convict someone without evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.

Indictments of any kind are serious. That being said, let's not forget that an indictment is not a conviction. We still have due process in this country.

I think most defense attorneys honestly believe the principle that says, 'Better 10 guilty go free than even one possibly innocent person be convicted.'

Some may remember, if you have good memories, that there used to be a concept in Anglo-American law called a presumption of innocence, innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Now that's so deep in history that there's no point even bringing it up, but it did once exist.

If everyone charged with crimes suddenly exercised his constitutional rights, there would not be enough judges, lawyers, or prison cells to deal with the ensuing tsunami of litigation.

Every American deserves their day in court. Every American is innocent until proven guilty. These are core values enshrined in our founding document - the United States Constitution.

Wherever they have been arraigned, a plain charge has been exhibited against them. They have had an impartial trial and have been permitted to make their defense.

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?

An important and fundamental premise of the American judicial system is the presumption of innocence, that is until proven guilty.

Plea bargaining is a system that is best described as one of condemnation without adjudication. It is a system that replaces trial, which is what our constitution intended, with deals… those deals are coerced. The prosecutor is basically forcing people to waive their rights to jury trial by threatening them with ever greater sanctions if they refuse to plead and instead demand the right to jury trial.

The American system of criminal prosecution is accusatorial, not inquisitional, and the 5th Amendment is its essential mainstay.

Let law enforcement determine guilt or innocence.

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.

The prosecutor has more control over life, liberty, and reputation than any other person in America.

By the time our Constitution was written, jury trials in criminal cases had been in existence in England for several centuries and carried impressive credentials traced by many back to Magna Carta.

I know what it means to prosecute people.

I try to basically keep my opinions to myself when it comes to people who are charged with crimes that I don't know anything about.

While not explicitly articulated in the Constitution, the presumption of innocence has, through Supreme Court opinions, become a fundamental tenet of our criminal-justice system, and rightly so.

Standing up on the right to trial by jury is something that, really, a lot of people should agree with, you know, both on the Right and the Left.

The core civil liberty that underpins our American criminal justice system is the presumption of innocence. Every person enjoys this presumption long before the commencement of any investigation or official proceeding.

Everyone is innocent unless proven otherwise.

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

Liberals are stalwart defenders of civil liberties - provided we're only talking about criminals.

The United States government can indict you on something, and now you've got to prove your innocence. And that's not the Constitution of the United States.