William O. Douglas Quotes

I'm a lawyer, I practiced for many years, and so I believe in the Fifth Amendment.

I've learned a long time ago if you don't have anything to hide, you shouldn't be pleading the Fifth, and most Americans get it.

I had the right to remain silent... but I didn't have the ability.

The 5th Amendment is an old friend and a good friend. It is one of the great landmarks in man's struggle to be free of tyranny, to be decent and civilized.

The privilege against self-incrimination is one of the great landmarks in man's struggle to make himself civilized... The Fifth is a lone sure rock in time of storm ... a symbol of the ultimate moral sense of the community, upholding the best in us.

There is nothing new in the realization that the Constitution sometimes insulates the criminality of a few in order to protect the privacy of us all.

The Bill of Rights

People have rights and government must be kept from trampling on them.

The privilege against self-incrimination is one of the great landmarks in man’s struggle to make himself civilized.

The Constitution is itself in every rational sense, and to every useful purpose, A BILL OF RIGHTS.

Can you tell me what's more unconstitutional than taking away from the people of America their Fifth Amendment rights, their Fourteenth Amendment rights, and the right to equal protection under the law?

The Framers [of the Constitution] . . . created the federally protected right of silence and decreed that the law could not be used to pry open one's lips and make him a witness against himself.

When it comes to my rights as an American citizen, and yours, I am a triumphalist and an absolutist. Anything less is an insult.

The Constitution has a good share of deliberately open-ended guarantees, like rights to due process of law, equal protection of the law, and freedom from unreasonable searches.

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

Those who deny the right of a jury to protect an individual in resisting an unjust law of the government, deny him all defence whatsoever against oppression.

I refuse to answer on the ground that this might be incriminating.

It is anomalous to hold that in order to convict a man the police cannot extract by force what is in his mind, but can extract what is in his stomach.

If government can give you rights, government can take them away from you.

It's important to every American that the law protect his or her basic liberty.

We believe that government in Britain is there to protect people from terrorism and from the worst criminality, but never at the expense of our civil liberties and the basic tenets of our legal system.

People in this country need to understand when you go to any airport in the United States, you are not protected by the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. They can do anything they want to you, and there is no where you can go to seek redress.

Any new legal measures, or cooperative arrangements between government and companies meant to keep people from organizing violence or criminal actions, must not be carried out in ways that erode due process, rule of law and the protection of innocent citizens' political and civil rights.

The right to be let alone is the underlying principle of the Constitution's Bill of Rights.

[The defendant] has an absolute, unqualified right to compel the State to investigate its own case, find its own witnesses, prove its own facts, and convince the jury through its own resources. Throughout the process, the defendant has a fundamental right to remain silent, in effect challenging the State at every point to “Prove it!”