Jeff Sessions Quotes

The role of the federal prosecutor and the purpose of a criminal investigation are well-defined.

Law enforcement does not ask an advantage in its struggle with the lawless. It asks only that the scales of justice be balanced. The cause of justice is not served when hardened criminals are allowed to go free through legal technicalities.

Due process does not require that every conceivable step be taken, at whatever cost, to eliminate the possibility of convicting an innocent person. To conclude otherwise would all but paralyze our system for enforcement of the criminal law.

Decisions on a matter as serious as charging an individual with a crime cannot be decided on anything less than complete examination of all available evidence. Anything less is not justice.

The States have always borne primary responsibility for operating the machinery of criminal justice within their borders, and adapting it to their peculiar circumstances.

Our criminal justice system was designed to be fair and is the fairest system known to man.

The justice system is confused in trying to understand it, but frankly, if it paid attention to the really blatant cases and did a good job with that, we would be light years ahead of where we are now.

A judge sometimes must release a criminal. He doesn't like it, she doesn't like it, but the law requires it. And the context of an election in which you are "soft on crime" betrays a misunderstanding of the judicial process and a misunderstanding of the Constitution.

I understood that with the swipe of my pen as a prosecutor, I would have the decision in my pen to make a decision about someone's life.

I believe myself to have been a reasonable prosecutor, and when the facts and evidence show a criminal violation has been committed, the individuals involved should not dictate whether the case is prosecuted.

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.

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.

I didn't spend a lot of time with prison guards, but my father was an assistant district attorney for a long time so I was always hearing stories about prisoners and prison guards.

A criminal trial is never about seeking justice for the victim. If it were, there could be only one verdict: guilty.

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

As a former attorney general. I have the greatest respect for the criminal justice system. But it is not good at intelligence gathering.

I was a prosecutor and an FBI agent for many, many years.

The vast majority of A.D.A.s put everything on the line to make sure justice is served. That's what I love about prosecutors and the New York police.

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

Our Constitution does not require that all crimes be solved.

No subject ought, in any case, or in any time, to be declared guilty of treason or felony by the legislature.

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.

To declare that in the administration of criminal law the end justifies the means -- to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure conviction of a private criminal -- would bring terrible retribution.

Manditory minimums were almost always excessive, and they made me feel unethical, even dirty.