Legal Skepticism Quotes

I own that it is a good deal of a mystery to me how judges, of all persons in the world, should put their faith in dicta. A brief experience on the bench was enough to reveal to me all sorts of cracks and crevices and loopholes in my own opinions when picked up a few months after delivery and reread with due contrition.

The law against witches does not prove there be any; but it punishes the malice of those people that use such means to take away men's lives.

Doubts raced through my mind as I considered the feasibility of enforcing a law which the majority of honest citizens didn't seem to want.

The law is an expression of God 's holy will and as such must be honored and loved," said the preacher piously. "Rubbish," said the Master. "The law is a necessary evil and as such must be cut down to the barest minimum. Show me a lover of the law and I will show you a muttonheaded tyrant .

The law is agnostic about truth. It's very skeptical of ultimate truth. That's why freedom of speech permits lies to be told.

As a citizen - or even a TV legal analyst - am I required to presume innocence, i.e., that the authorities arrest the wrong person in every case? Not a chance.

The idea that a prisoner would confess to a complete stranger that he had committed a crime - I just didn't buy that.