Legal Procedure Quotes

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.

It is more dangerous that even a guilty person should be punished without the forms of law than that he should escape.

I spent my time trying to understand grand jury procedure - a topic about which I never before had the slightest interest.

Constitutional Government in Naples is hopeless. What would suit us, would be an enlightened despotism—such a Government as Murat's might have ripened into had he stayed. We owe him nearly all the progress that we have made during the last three or four centuries. He gave us open legal procedure, the abolition of privileges, the diminution of ecclesiastical property, and the few roads which we possess. Now all is going backwards

We don't talk about the timing of open matters, but I certainly agree with the FBI director that in every investigation, no matter whom it involves, we are thorough, we are fair, we are efficient, and we move through the facts and the evidence and come to the conclusions that are called upon.

Sentence first, verdict afterwards.

Due process is a growth too sturdy to succumb to the infection of the least ingredient of error.

I do not think that reports should be subpoenaed anything close to routinely.

In societies that profess some respect for law, suspects are apprehended and brought to fair trial. I stress 'suspects.'

The prosecution... wants to make sure the process by which the evidence was obtained is not truthfully presented, because, as often as not, that process will raise questions.

The Constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process.

Police officers must act quickly to seize wrongdoers and obtain evidence while protecting themselves and bystanders. It is easy to second-guess their search-and-seizure decisions in a secure courtroom.

Objection!" Metz shouts. Grounds?" the judge asks. Well...he's my witness!

We don't have storm troopers that just knock on the door of every American citizen. We don't do that for any crime. But when we have evidence that a particular person has committed a crime, we send law enforcement to apprehend them.

Courts of law require evidence to go to trial - not opinions from bureaucrats.

It does not follow … that a procedure settled in English law at the time of the emigration, and brought to this country and practiced by our ancestors, is an essential element of due process of law. If that were so, the procedure of the first half of the 17th century would be fastened upon the American jurisprudence like a straightjacket, only to be unloosed by constitutional amendment

Rule of law is based on probable cause.

When I interview people accused of capital offenses, I never even ask if they did it. I would consider that unprofessional.

There is scarcely anything more important in the government of men than the exact - I will ever say pedantic - observance of the regular forms by which the guilt or innocence of accused persons is determined.

I do not allow myself to be moved by anything except the law. If there has been a mistake in the law, or if I think there has beenperjury or injustice, I will weigh the petition most carefully, but I do not permit myself to be moved by more harrowing details, and I try to treat each case as if I was reviewing it or hearing it for the first time from the bench.

The execution was set for the 29th of March, at nine in the morning. This delay was due to a desire on the part of the authorities to act slowly and impersonally, in the manner of planets or vegetables.

An indictment is not a conviction.

I can't imagine a situation where, as FBI director, I would be giving a press conference on an uncharged individual, much less talking in detail about it.

Whate'er is best administered is best," may truly be said of a juridical system, and the due distribution of justice depends more upon the rules by which suits are to be conducted, than on the perfection of the code by which rights are defined.

Due process is not a mechanical instrument. It is not a yardstick. It is a process.