Defense Attorneys Quotes

• There is no client as scary as an innocent man.

  Michael Connelly

  Men, Innocent Man, Scary

  Michael Connelly (2011). “The Lincoln Lawyer Novels: The Lincoln Lawyer, The Brass Verdict, The Reversal”, Little, Brown

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• The defendant wants to hide the truth because he's generally guilty. The defense attorney's job is to make sure the jury does not arrive at that truth.

  Alan Dershowitz

  Jobs, Justice, Doe

  "U.S. News & World Report", August 9, 1982.

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• Well, did he do it?" She always asked the irrelevant question. It didn't matter in terms of the strategy of the case whether the defendant "did it" or not. What mattered was the evidence against him -- the proof -- and if and how it could be neutralized. My job was to bury the proof, to color the proof a shade of gray. Gray was the color of reasonable doubt.

  Michael Connelly

  Jobs, Color, Ifs And

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• You can be a career professional as a judge, a prosecutor, sometimes as a defense attorney, and never insist on fairness and justice. That's tragic and that's what we have to change.

  Bryan Stevenson

  Careers, Justice, Judging

  Source: www.progressive.org

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• If you're a prosecutor, and you believe the defendant is guilty, you only talk about ultimate truth, but not intermediate truth. If you're the defense attorney, you care deeply about intermediate truth, but you tend to neglect ultimate truth.

  Alan Dershowitz

  Believe, Defense, Care

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

  Alan Dershowitz

  Believe, Thinking, Innocent Person

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• I think most defense attorneys know, to some extent, their clients are guilty.

  Matthew McConaughey

  Thinking, Defense, Clients

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• For a lawyer to do less than his utmost is, I strongly feel, a betrayal of his client. Though in criminal trials one tends to focus on the defense attorney and his client the accused, the prosecutor is also a lawyer, and he too has a client: the People. And the People are equally entitled to their day in court, to a fair and impartial trial, and to justice.

  Vincent Bugliosi

  Betrayal, People, Justice

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• 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.

  Jim Garrison

  Defense, Satisfaction, Sides

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• When I was a prosecutor in San Francisco I would get advice on trying cases from public defenders and defense attorneys.

  Christine Pelosi

  San Francisco, Advice, Trying

  "Christine Pelosi's boot camp trains future politicians to avoid the campaign minefield" by Sam Whiting, www.sfgate.com. February 3, 2008.

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• I think when you play a role, you always have to be a defense attorney for that character.

  Matt Bomer

  Character, Thinking, Play

  "Get Under Matt Bomer's White Collar". Interview with Kari Forsee, www.oprah.com. July 30, 2010.

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• When...has a mugging case ever heard a defense attorney claim, 'Your Honor, the victim was dressed in an Armani suit and wearing a Rolex. Clearly he was begging to be assaulted.'

  Peter David

  Honor, Defense, Suits

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• One of the most fundamental questions people have about defense attorneys is, 'How can you do that? How can you go to bat everyday for a person that you may not know is guilty but you have a pretty good idea that he's not so innocent?' It's a question that defense attorneys answer for themselves by not addressing.

  David E. Kelley

  Ideas, People, Everyday

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• One of the people that wrote a forward to my book is Gerry Spence, whom I admire. Gerry is a friend of mine, and Gerry's perhaps the leading criminal defense attorney in the country.

  Vincent Bugliosi

  Country, Book, People

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• After 25-plus years as a lawyer, prosecutor, and defense attorney, I have developed a deep appreciation for both the wisdom of the law and the role that jurists play in framing the rights and responsibilities that define our society.

  Eliot Spitzer

  Appreciation, Responsibility, Rights

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• [I have ] two boys. One, Nicholas, is a criminal defense attorney in Phoenix in which he - gets into - a lot of very controversial cases. He has sued Sheriff Arpaio, the famous sheriff who keeps people in tents, gives them green bologna and the like. My other son Tom is with Williams & Connolly in Washington, where he does intellectual property defamation cases.

  Nat Hentoff

  Son, Boys, Phoenix

  Source: thedailyhatch.org

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• The prison-industrial complex employs millions of people directly and indirectly. Judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, prison guards, construction companies that build prisons, police, probation officers, court clerks, the list goes on and on. Many predominately white rural communities have come to believe that their local economies depend on prisons for jobs.

  Michelle Alexander

  Jobs, Believe, White

  Source: www.truth-out.org

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• You have plaintiffs attorneys, you have defense attorneys. So there is no unified bar that will protect a particular judge who has made a courageous decision that's unpopular.

  Anthony Kennedy

  Judging, Decision, Defense

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