Kerry Kennedy Quotes

Mere access to the courthouse doors does not by itself assure a proper functioning of the adversary process.

Everybody has a right to be defended, and every lawyer has a duty to defend people accused. And my office is to defend him, to discuss the accusation point by point, as I think this is a normal step in a democracy.

Before I became Attorney General, I won’t say that I stayed up at night worrying about civil rights

I learned that in seventy percent of all the civil cases in the judiciary of the United State at least one of the parties is not represented by an attorney. I didn’t know that.

There's nothing wrong with crooks having lawyers. Everyone is entitled to a lawyer.

Legal aid is crucial in ensuring those truly guilty of crimes are convicted after due process, and those innocent are able to clear their names, by ensuring that access to legal representation is available for everyone, regardless of ability to pay.

We all require equal access to the justice system.

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

When legal aid was first introduced in 1949, the late Arthur Skeffington said that the law at that time was like The Ritz, in that those who could afford to pay had access to it, while those who could not did not.

Legal aid... is fundamental to giving everybody in this country access to justice.

I'm a civil rights attorney. I'm a victim rights attorney.

When I was a prosecutor in Kansas City, my job was to fight for justice and safety for all citizens in my community. Equal access to justice under the law is an American value embedded in the fabric of our legal and political system - the idea that anybody, powerful or not, can have their day in court.

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.

Whatever a person's politics, lawyers have to understand that we are, for most people, the gateway for them to have access to the third branch of government.

You can be arrested and not charged. You can be arrested and have no right to counsel.

I'm a duty solicitor, so I can't fix someone's life; all I can do is fix the problem I've got in front of my eyes.

If we are to fulfill the promise of this great Nation that everybody in our society has equal access to the law, obviously having the resources to have access to the law is extremely important.

I was covering the Supreme Court when it decided Gideon v. Wainright, and the case has always had special meaning for me.

And let no one apply to the king in any suit, unless he at home may not be worthy of law, or cannot obtain law.

Legal aid gets a bad press. Some rail against handing taxpayers' money to criminals; others attack fat cat lawyers, while some argue that we spend far more on legal aid than other countries. But let's get some facts straight: saying that legal aid is just about criminals is wrong - most goes to people before any decision is taken on their guilt.

We have a system of jurisprudence. You are innocent until proven guilty. You have a right to counsel. And you have a right to hospitalization if you are ill. That is our system. And it's what makes this country special and what makes this country great.

Without legal aid, and the dedicated lawyers who deliver it, our system of justice would quite simply collapse.

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.

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.

Access to our civil courts has been severely restricted by the combination of: the removal of legal aid from some cases based on their type, not their merit; a high financial threshold for the receipt of legal aid in other cases; and a failure to deliver a safety net for vulnerable individuals by the exceptional funding arrangements.