Reasonable Doubt Quotes

One would much rather that twenty guilty persons should escape the punishment of death, than that one innocent person should be condemned and suffer capitally.

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

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.

Juries are not qualified to judge questions of law, but they are very capable of judging questions of fact.

There are more important things than finding the murderer. And justice is a fine word, but it is sometimes difficult to say exactly what one means by it. In my opinion, the important thing is to clear the innocent. - Hercule Poirot

Circumstantial evidence is evidence.

To some lawyers, all facts are created equal.

Or. I hate that word. It’s two letters long and stuffed to the gills with reasonable doubt.

The O.J. Simpson case, they had no understanding of that DNA evidence, and didn't want to.

After all, clemency is by nature outside the rule of law. When conferred upon those already convicted of crimes, it unravels the decision of citizen-jurors who found guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Some may remember, if you have good memories, that there used to be a concept in Anglo-American law called a presumption of innocence, innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Now that's so deep in history that there's no point even bringing it up, but it did once exist.

After the verdict was read in the Simpson case, as the jury was leaving, one of them, I was later told, said, 'We think he probably did it. We just didn't think they proved it beyond a reasonable doubt.'

While you're finding evidence of innocence, you also find evidence that points to other people.

I never sympathise with the accused unless there's a chance the accused is not guilty, but I certainly don't ever sympathise with the criminal.

I didn't do it, nobody saw me do it, there's no way you can prove anything!

People are entitled to the presumption of innocence.

There is no such thing as absolute proof. There is only evidence.

Criminal cases require strategy, and prosecutors should attempt to prove only what can be proved.

If it doesn't fit, you must acquit.

I thought it was possible that O.J. could have done something. It crossed my mind. I was thinking about the events of everything and going, Why did I hear that? I was going, No, it can't be, and just all that stuff was adding up.

I don't think the law exists to arrive at the truth. If it did, we wouldn't have exclusionary rules, we wouldn't have presumptions of innocence, we wouldn't have proof beyond reasonable doubt. There's an enormous difference between the role of truth in law and the role of truth in science. In law, truth is one among many goals.

If you’re going to remove a President from office and overturn a national election, you had better be sure that it’s ‘beyond a reasonable doubt.’

Practically, every defense lawyer knows that the jury desperately wants to hear from the defendant and that the only reason not to put him on the stand is that he is soooo guilty that every answer he gives after his name will eradicate any shred of reasonable doubt.

I would say that without any doubt he's the killer - the law says beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty which I - there's no question that he was the killer of President Kennedy.

In the last four years the sound rule of giving statutes the benefit of all reasonable doubt has been cast aside. The Court has been acting not as a judicial body, but as a policy-making body…. Judges who will bring to the Courts a present-day sense of the Constitution - Judges who will retain in the Courts the judicial functions of a court, and reject the legislative powers which the courts have today assumed.