Errol Morris Quotes

It would be great to do a story and get somebody who is innocent out of jail. That's a wonderful thing.

I directed and produced Conviction, a movie about a man who spent 18 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. I got to know Innocence Project co-founder Barry Scheck very well - he's a character in the movie - and I got very passionate about the cause. It's just so inherently dramatic.

Believe me, it is a great deal better to find cast-iron proof that you're innocent than to languish in a cell hoping that the police---who already think you're guilty---will find it for you.

I will prove my innocence, ... I guarantee the Filipino people that I will be vindicated because the truth is on my side.

And that's the mission of The Innocence Project in New York, is to exonerate people who have been wrongfully convicted, and also work from a policy angle with Congress and state legislatures to prevent future wrongful convictions.

There are many innocent people in prison.

I hear much of people's calling out to punish the guilty, but very few are concerned to clear the innocent.

I was just really appalled, and I really kept quiet until I saw the governor [Rick Perry] get on and repeat the same words that the prosecution had used in the penalty phase: that he [Todd Willingham] was a monster. And that got me to get on to the computer and connect with some of the media and say: "I have his letters. He wasn't a monster. He was a caring individual." Let them see another side.

I think this country would be much better off if we did not have capital punishment.... We cannot ignore the fact that in recent years a disturbing number of inmates on death row have been exonerated.

The advent of DNA testing, and the number of convictions thrown out, has confirmed that we've put LOTS of innocent people to death. There need not be any other argument against death penalty.

It would be one thing if we could say the system works [in Illinois], and that individuals followed procedures and were found innocent, but in fact in all the cases it was really a fluke ... We find persistent wrongdoing on the part of law enforcement. It's really sheer luck that those convicted of these [capital] crimes were exonerated in the end.

Two of the three men, who were imprisoned, Norman Butler and Robert 15x Johnson, convicted and given life sentences, I'm absolutely convinced were innocent. The real murderers of Malcolm X have not been caught or punished.

I have never articulated a specific number, but I think a nation as great as we are, that professes to favor freedom and liberty, that we would find a way to evidence that in our criminal justice system by achieving what we know we can achieve: a reduction in crime, a reduction in taxpayer expense, and a reduction in the prison population.

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.

The status quo tough-on-crime policies of the '90s and 2000s are not working and are not popular. And it provides me with hope about the possibilities for San Francisco and this whole country in terms of moving away from our dependence on prisons and jails to solve social problems.

I think any time you're able to humanize the plight of the wrongfully incarcerated, then you're doing your job.

We'll get way further if we educate people and not lock them up.

We will never, ever weaken our resolve to be tough on the worst offenders. But we will responsibly take steps to assist our friends and neighbors who deserve a second chance to contribute to our society.

It is extremely hard to bring a claim for compensation against the police or the Crown Prosecution Service, even when a person has been charged with an offence and later cleared.

When we look at our justice system, we have this image of a balancing scale: truth and justice, right and wrong. But for years, our system has been lopsided, where it's not about truth and justice or balance. It's about being tough on crime, and sometimes that means you're putting the wrong person behind bars.

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

Too many communities are living in fear as violent crime rises. So we need to reform our justice system to keep our streets safe and protect the law-abiding majority. That means putting an end to soft sentences and punishing offenders by keeping them behind bars so that the public can be protected and the offenders can be rehabilitated.

I think some parts of the American justice system have gone haywire.

We've got to be able to distinguish between dangerous individuals who need to be incapacitated and incarcerated versus young people who are in an environment in which they are adapting, but if given different opportunities, a different vision of life, could be thriving the way we are. That's what strikes me. There but for the grace of God. And that, I think, is something that we all have to think about.

Most criminologists today will acknowledge that crime rates and incarceration rates in the United States have had relatively little to do with each other.