Unjust Prosecution Quotes

What seems fair enough against a squalid huckster of bad liquor may take on a different face, if used by a government determined to suppress political opposition under the guise of sedition

When you're poor and black in America, you stand a greater chance of going to prison for something you didn't do.

I have no respect for the prosecutors, the judges. And I say that not with malice in my heart. I say it because they took 30 years from me.

[There are] roughly 50,000 arrests in New York City for marijuana possession [every year]... Of those 50,000 arrests, 82 percent are black and Hispanic... These arrests stigmatize, they criminalize, they create a permanent record. It's not fair, it's not right, it must end and it must end now... Stop stigmatizing these young people, making it harder to find a job, making it harder to get into school, making it harder to turn their lives around.

People say I've had brushes with the law. That's not true. I've had brushes with overzealous prosecutors.

Our criminal justice system is failing all of us. It is not keeping us safe. It is contributing to a vicious cycle of crime and punishment.

I hope that I will be the last victim in China's long record of treating words as crimes.

The idea that an actress - mostly lauded for her performances in more than a dozen films - somehow represents a threat to Iran's national security is laughable at best. But in Ahangarani's case, far from anything humorous, the allegations have actually resulted in the sober prospect of real prison time.

'Strong Island' is not your typical true-crime film. It's not actually about the uncovering of evidence or following leads that hadn't been seen before or any of that stuff.

In the eyes of the world, Malaysia has become a pariah state, a state where anyone can be hauled up and questioned by the police, detained, and charged through abusing laws of the country.

I have said what millions of people think and find. It is a travesty that I have to defend myself in court for this.

There's nothing scarier than a reckless prosecutor.

In its attempt to crush the Black Panthers, the FBI engineered frequent arrests on the flimsiest of pretexts.

The author of McCarthyism was given the distinction of addressing the Republican National Convention. This strikes terror in the hearts of honest men.

I was not aware of a ton of the stuff that was being said about me out in the world since I wasn't able to get British or American headlines from my prison cell in Perugia. But I was aware that in the courtroom, I was being called a succubus, a man-eater, 'Foxy Knoxy.'

It's true I didn't get a fair trial, but the problem is people don't understand the details. It is important to understand the details of the trial and why I'm not guilty under the charges that were brought against me.

Listen, not everybody can afford to get a great lawyer and defend yourself against something that you didn't do.

The last thing I would have ever expected to happen to me in my life would be that, in fact, I would be accused of doing something wrong and maybe even something criminal.

When governments go too far to punish people for actions that are dissent rather than a real threat to the nation, they risk delegitimizing not just their systems of justice, but the legitimacy of the government itself. Because when they bring political charges against people for acts that were clearly at least intended to work in the public interest, they deny them the opportunity to mount a public-interest defense.

I would hate for people to think that 'Strong Island' is just about a family's grief. It is about a family's grief, yes, but it is also an interrogation of our criminal justice system.

I had bought a farm, was trying to rebuild my life and just looking to be left alone. Then I get charged with perjury strictly for political purposes.

What can I do if everyone from the president to a junior bureaucrat is dying to convict me. If I am such a criminal, what was I doing outside jail before my marriage to Benazir?

Could it be that my indictment -- curiously issued two weeks before the Democratic National Convention -- is largely political?