Prosecutor Quotes

• My job as a prosecutor is to do justice. And justice is served when a guilty man is convicted and an innocent man is not.

  Sonia Sotomayor

  Jobs, Men, Innocent Man

  Sen. Klobuchar Questions Judge Sotomayor at Supreme Court Nomination Hearings, www.washingtonpost.com. July 15, 2009.

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• The prosecutor, who is supposed to carry the burden of proof, really is an author.

  Scott Turow

  Burden Of Proof, Burden, Proof

  "To hell with Perry Mason". The Observer Interview, www.theguardian.com. November 24, 2002.

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• If you make a mistake as a prosecutor, your mistakes go home, whereas if you make a mistake defending, they go to jail.

  Lynne Stewart

  Mistake, Home, Jail

  Source: www.guernicamag.com

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• There have been high crimes and misdemeanors, but they have been committed by the special prosecutor and the Congress, not the president.

  Donella Meadows

  Hype, Special, President

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• 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.

  William O. Douglas

  Wall, Rights, Law

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• A grand jury hears only one side - that of the prosecutor

  Donella Meadows

  Sides, Jury, Grand Jury

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• I had concluded when I was the prosecutor that I would vote against the death penalty if I were in the legislature but that I could ask for it when I was satisfied as to guilt.

  Janet Reno

  Guilt, Death Penalty, Vote

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• I was a prosecutor in Brooklyn in the homicide division and then as a senior assistant district attorney.

  Star Jones

  Senior, Division, Brooklyn

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• I believe Watergate shows that the system did work. Particularly the Judiciary and the Congress, and ultimately an independent prosecutor working in the Executive Branch.

  Bob Woodward

  Work, Believe, Independent

  "Watergate: 25 Years Later". The Washington Post Interview, www.washingtonpost.com. June 17, 1997.

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• I think that sometimes the most intelligent things that prosecutors do is when they exercise their discretion not to go forward with a case.

  Rudy Giuliani

  Exercise, Intelligent, Thinking

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• I wanted to be a prosecutor - a criminal lawyer - because there's nowhere where the stakes are higher, where you can wake up every day and believe in what you're doing.

  Preet Bharara

  Believe, Criminals, Wake Up

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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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• One thing I learned a long time ago as a prosecutor is that it's tough to get people to obey a law if there is not penalty for breaking it

  Roy Barnes

  Law, Long, People

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• I don't view prosecutors and attorneys as natural enemies. ... Though their roles are oppositional, the two simply have different roles to play in pursuit of the larger purpose, realizing the rule of law. ... This is not to deny that the will to win drives those efforts. ... Rather, it is simply to insist that ultimately, neither the accused nor society is served unless the integrity of the system is set above the expedient purposes of either side.

  Sonia Sotomayor

  Integrity, Winning, Views

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• Most of the prosecutors I know are good people who are committed to protecting us from those who would prey on us. But these days, I sometimes run into prosecutors who just don't seem to have the character we used to have 20-30 years ago. People need to understand that prosecutors are lawyers, and like my grandmama once told me, a law degree is a license to lie.

  Christopher Darden

  Running, Lying, Character

  Source: www.highsnobiety.com

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• Normally a grand jury will indict a ham sandwich if a prosecutor asks it to.

  Chuck Robb

  Sandwiches, Ham, Injustice

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• My heart and passion has always been to reform the criminal justice system. I want to be a public servant, and I wanted to be a prosecutor because I felt it was the best way forward.

  Marilyn Mosby

  Passion, Heart, Way Forward

  Source: www.marieclaire.com

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• A prosecutor's job is to file the evidence wherever it takes us.

  Kevin Steele

  Jobs, Evidence, Files

  "What Is The Cultural Impact Of Bill Cosby's Arrest On Sex Crimes?". "Morning Edition", www.npr.org. December 31, 2015.

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• I went to law school. And I became a prosecutor. I took on a specialty that very few choose to pursue. I prosecuted child abuse and child homicide cases. Cases that were truly gut-wrenching. But standing up for those kids, being their voice for justice was the honor of a lifetime.

  Susana Martinez

  Children, School, Kids

  RNC speech, www.politico.com. August 29, 2012.

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• 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.

  Robert H. Jackson

  Book, Men, Law

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• A single zealot may commence prosecutor, and better men be his victims.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Men, May, Victim

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• When police or prosecutors conceal significant exculpatory or impeaching material, we hold, it is ordinarily incumbent on the state to set the record straight.

  Ruth Bader Ginsburg

  Police, Records, Holding On

  "High court reverses inmate's death sentence" by Bill Mears, www.cnn.com. February 24, 2004.

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• The canvas is a court where the artist is prosecutor, defendant, jury and judge. Art without a trial disappears at a glance.

  Philip Guston

  Art, Judging, Trials

  Philip Guston, Clark Coolidge (2011). “Philip Guston: Collected Writings, Lectures, and Conversations”, p.53, Univ of California Press

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• I'm going to have a special prosecutor. We're going to enforce the trade deals we have, and we're going to hold people accountable.

  Hillary Clinton

  People, Special, Trade

  "The first Trump-Clinton presidential debate transcript, annotated". www.washingtonpost.com. September 26, 2016.

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• Prosecutors insist they are mounting a "thorough investigation," which sometimes means thorough and sometimes, historically, has meant long enough to let the fire burn down in an incendiary case. A thorough investigation is fine; an interminable one is disgraceful.

  Anna Quindlen

  Mean, Fire, Justice

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