Eliot Spitzer Quotes

I think most defense attorneys honestly believe the principle that says, 'Better 10 guilty go free than even one possibly innocent person be convicted.'

Maimonides taught that it is better that 10 criminals go free than let one innocent man be executed. The Innocence Project represents that point of view.

I always received much more satisfaction as a defense attorney in obtaining an acquittal for a client than I ever have as a D.A. in obtaining a conviction. All my interests and sympathies tend to be on the side of the individual as opposed to the state.

The vast majority of A.D.A.s put everything on the line to make sure justice is served. That's what I love about prosecutors and the New York police.

Our criminal justice system was designed to be fair and is the fairest system known to man.

In representing criminal defendants—especially guilty ones—it is often necessary to take the offensive against the government: to put the government on trial for its misconduct.

From the very beginning, our state and national constitutions and laws have laid great emphasis on procedural and substantive safeguards designed to assure fair trials before impartial tribunals in which every defendant stands equal before the law. This noble ideal cannot be realized if the poor man charged with crime has to face his accusers without a lawyer to assist him.

Our constitutionally-based criminal justice system places a high value on protecting the innocent. Among its central tenets is the idea that it is better to let a guilty person go free than to convict someone without evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.

Indictments of any kind are serious. That being said, let's not forget that an indictment is not a conviction. We still have due process in this country.

You don't send people to prison on the basis of what other people imagine, or on the basis of media sound bites like 'shooting an unarmed child,' when that 'child' was beating him bloody.

I therefore believe that our system does not have a word for failed trial, and that is where the American public does not realize that our criminal justice system sometimes makes mistakes.

It is indeed an odd business that it has taken this Court nearly two centuries to 'discover' a constitutional mandate to have counsel at a preliminary hearing.

Liberals are stalwart defenders of civil liberties - provided we're only talking about criminals.

The United States government can indict you on something, and now you've got to prove your innocence. And that's not the Constitution of the United States.

I got the chance to argue my first case in Supreme Court, a criminal case arising in Alabama that involved the right of a defendant to counsel at a critical stage in a capital case before a trial.

In a democratic country, when a man is accused, he's accused from a document issued by the public attorney.

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

It's very hard to uphold individual liberty when the person you're representing is often a crook.

All lawyers are the natural enemies of the police.

Law enforcement does not ask an advantage in its struggle with the lawless. It asks only that the scales of justice be balanced. The cause of justice is not served when hardened criminals are allowed to go free through legal technicalities.

Justice in this country is an insurance policy. It’s not something that we’re supposed to get sometimes.

These exonerations do not indicate that there is something wrong with the Texas Criminal Justice System. They demonstrate that the system is working. We have a lengthy and methodical process of appeals. And that is a great and good mark for Texas.

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.

To declare that in the administration of criminal law the end justifies the means -- to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure conviction of a private criminal -- would bring terrible retribution.

God forbid that the defendant should not be allowed the benefit of every advantage he is entitled to by law.