Charles C. Nott Jr. Quotes
The innocent man is always eager to give his explanation and does so at the first opportunity, and it is always to his interest so to do. But the guilty is now enabled by the law to remain mute, to learn the evidence against him, to concoct his defense pending trial, and to come into court fully acquainted with the case against him, while the district attorney only knows that the defendant has pronounced the two words "not guilty.
This is the classic argument given by those who would deny a defendant the Constitutional protection against self-incrimination. The belief that an innocent man has nothing to fear from the police is refuted by the many cases of innocent men being convicted by evidence they have given in the belief that they were innocent, and served long jail sentences only to later be proved by DNA evidence that they could not possibly have been guilty. Since Nott’s day, society has not only found many cases where honest error was made by the police or prosecutors, but many where there was venal prosecutorial misconduct and defendants were jailed even though the authorities were aware of evidence of innocence and kept it secret. There have been a number of these cases where a defendant was on death row and about to be executed when it was found he was innocent. Probably there have been men wrongly executed. See {629444} for a probable example.
Charles C. Nott, Jr., Writer & New York State Judge, “Coddling the Criminal”, The Atlantic Monthly, February 1911
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The two defendants were executed. The trial was not only defective as this quotation alleges, but other subsequent investigations showed that there was exculpatory evidence that was withheld by the authorities. This case was one of the lowest points in American jurisprudence. Frankfurter was at the time of this writing a law professor and was appointed. 12 years after this writing, he was appointed to the Supreme Court and served there with distinction for 23 years.
Reaction to the indictments of several of his political associates who were subsequently convicted after this statement:
This is one of the many statements of President Bush that contributed to his reputation as a polarizing politician. His supporters turned to this statement to illustrate that Bush was a supporter of the Constitution and civil liberties by urging the nation not to engage in vigilantism or give vent to their stereotypic views of minorities. Detractors took the same statement as a perfect example of Bush’s assault on Constitutional freedoms. Law enforcement does not determine guilt or innocence in our system. Police and prosecutors in America do not determine guilt or innocence; juries do. They argue that the Bush administration law enforcement policies are designed to have law enforcement usurp more and more of this facet of criminal justice.
Charles I was tried by Parliament but at the time there was the concept of Royal Impunity and there was no existing crime that he could be charged with despite the murder of many of his citizens. Cooke established the legal precedent making Tyranny a crime. See {624032}.
