Chen Shui-bian Quotes

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

The second trial was a fair trial. I do not call it a second trial. I call it a fair trial, as opposed to the first trial, which was an unfair trial, a Roman holiday.

It is better that a guilty man should not be brought to trial than that he should be acquitted.

A fox should not be on the jury at a goose's trial.

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?

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

The whole proceeding was little more than a kangaroo court.

It is ridiculous to say that Sacco and Vanzetti are being railroaded to the chair. The situation is much worse than that. This is a thing done cold-bloodedly and with deliberation. But care and deliberation do not guarantee justice.

Were I ever alone in the dock, I would not want to be arraigned before our flawed tribunals, knowing my freedom could be forfeit as a result of political pressures. I would prefer a fair trial, under the shadow of the noose.

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.

An innocent man, if accused, can be acquitted; a guilty man, unless accused, cannot be condemned. It is, however, more advantageous to absolve an innocent than not to prosecute a guilty man.

People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty.

Ares gives his verdict without witnesses.

They attack the victim, and then the criminal who attacked the victim accuses the victim of attacking him. This is American justice. This is American democracy and those of you who are familiar with it know that in America democracy is hypocrisy. Now, if I’m wrong, put me in jail; but if you can’t prove that democracy is not hypocrisy, then don’t put your hands on me.

A fair trial would have been no trial at all.

I find it deeply upsetting when I see justice not being served. How do we as human beings deal with the unknown? The West Memphis Three trial is a joke on so many different levels.

In Nigeria they convict by law, not by the truth

Couldn't help but make me feel ashamed to live in a land where justice is a game.

Every time an ashtray is missing from a hotel, they don't come looking for you. But let a diamond bracelet disappear in France and they shout John Robie, the Cat. You don't have to spend every day of your life proving your honesty, but I do.

There are so many laws that no one is safe from hanging.

If Mike Tyson is in your courtroom and you don't send him to jail, it's an injustice. Everyone knows he's a bad guy. So if he is in your courtroom, he should go to jail.

The biggest fairy tale is that justice works because it doesn't.

But let us say he was (guilty). Let us for a moment say he was (guilty). What justice would there be to take his life? Justice, gentlemen? Why, I would just as soon put a hog in the electric chair as this.

Uncertain justice by a verdict is much better than certain injustice.

How cruel the Penal Laws are which exclude me from a fair trial with men whom I look upon as so much my inferiors.