Tucker Carlson Quotes

Life and liberty can be as much endangered from illegal methods used to convict those thought to be criminals as from the actual criminals themselves.

A prosecutor should never file a bogus case to get headlines.

Prosecutorial misconduct is one of the most detrimental problems in our criminal justice system, because prosecutors are essentially the most powerful actors in our justice system because they set the charges, they basically set up the rules of the game.

I always thought that was one of the single most important things a prosecutor could do is to seek justice for the families of victims.

I was raised - professionally - in the Public Integrity Section. I started in 1976, stayed there for 12 years. It was formed after Watergate by then-head of the Criminal Division Dick Thornburgh, who ultimately became Attorney General.

Legislators and judges are necessarily exposed to all the temptations of money, fame, and power, to induce them to disregard justice between parties, and sell the rights, and violate the liberties of the people. Jurors, on the other hand, are exposed to none of these temptations.

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

[The decisions made by the prosecutors were] stunningly arbitrary. These decisions are shrouded in such complete secrecy that they make the proceedings of the former English Court of Star Chamber appear to be a model of criminal justice transparency. We as judges can and should do more [to change the situation.]

The government may set decoys to entrap criminals. But it may nor provoke or create a crime, and then punish the criminal, its creature.

They [special prosecutors] have an unending license to do somebody in.

The line between investigation and persecution is a very fine one.

… a clear abuse of judicial power

The government itself violates the law when it leaks grand jury proceedings in order to influence the prospective jury pool

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.

I never conducted business as a Republican D.A.

As a former federal prosecutor with experience prosecuting both violent and white-collar criminals, I've seen what it looks like when the powerful prey on the vulnerable.

The function of the prosecutor under the federal Constitution is not to tack as many skins of victims as possible against the wall. His function is to vindicate the rights of the people as expressed in the laws and give those accused of crime a fair trial.

It is intolerable that it should be in the power of one blockhead to do so much mischief.

With the law books filled with a great assortment of crimes, a prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at least a technical violation of some act on the part of almost anyone. In such a case, it is not a question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for the man who has committed it, it is a question of picking the man and then searching the law books, or putting investigators to work, to pin some offense on him.

I was against felonies when a misdemeanor would do.

Tyranny seldom announces itself...In fact, a tyranny may exist without an individual tyrant. A whole government, even a democratically elected one, may be tyrannical.

Although we refer to the International Criminal Court, the real problem is the prosecutor, because it's the prosecutor who decides who to investigate and what cases to bring. This court fundamentally embodied a potential for abuse of governmental power that I felt was inconsistent with being a free person - and [it was] inconsistent for a free country like the United States to subscribe to it.

I regard the death penalty as a savage and immoral institution that undermines the moral and legal foundations of society.

Power attracts the corruptible. Suspect any who seek it.

The possession of unlimited power corrodes the conscience, hardens the heart, and confounds the understanding.