A Quote by Antonin Scalia
Like other human institutions, courts and juries are not perfect. One cannot have a system of criminal punishment without accepting the possibility that someone will be punished mistakenly.
Quote Topics
Quote Author
Related Quotes
Perfection is a theory. You cannot be a perfect human being, perfect artist. You cannot be a perfect husband, you cannot be a perfect father probably and probably I am not. But go through your daily routine with hope you will be a little better in all respects, and do something meaningful
It is apparent, if you go back through our history, that the grand juries of the criminal justice system do not value black lives.
Capital punishment, like the rest of the criminal justice system, is a government program, so skepticism is in order.
While teaching, I also worked undercover in the lower courts by saying I was a young law teacher wanting experience in criminal law. The judges were happy to assist me but what I learned was how corrupt the lower courts were. Judges were accepting money right in the courtroom.
Being afraid something is true is accepting the possibility. Accepting the possibility is the first step to believing.
If he who breaks the law is not punished, he who obeys it is cheated. This, and this alone, is why lawbreakers ought to be punished: to authenticate as good, and to encourage as useful, law-abiding behavior. The aim of criminal law cannot be correction or deterrence; it can only be the maintenance of the legal order.
I am sure from my experience of juries that, in a criminal case especially, they will obey the law as declared by the Judge; they will take the law from the Judge, whether they like it or do not like it, and apply it honestly to the facts before them.
Without accepting the fact that everything changes, we cannot find perfect composure. But unfortunately, although it is true, it is difficult for us to accept it. Because we cannot accept the truth of transience, we suffer.
Without accepting the fact that everything changes, we cannot find perfect composure. Unfortunately, although it is true, it is difficult for us to accept it. Because we cannot accept the truth of transience, we suffer.
The criminal justice system, like any system designed by human beings, clearly has its flaws.
In countries with a properly functioning legal system, the mob continues to exist, but it is rarely called upon to mete out capital punishment. The right to take human life belongs to the state. Not so in societies where weak courts and poor law enforcement are combined with intractable structural injustices.
What really drives the battle against law enforcement and punishment is not a commitment to treatment, but the widely held view that, first, we are imprisoning too many people for merely possessing illegal drugs; second, drug and other criminal sentences are too long and harsh, and third, the criminal justice system is unjustly punishing young black men. These are among the great urban myths of our time.
Attention must be given to the penal consequences of violations of the right to peace, including the punishment by domestic courts or in due time by the International Criminal Court of those who have engaged in aggression and propaganda for war.
The criminal justice system is not the right place - or it shouldn't be the place of first resort to provide addiction or mental health services. It should happen elsewhere with no police and no judges and no juries and no jails.
When in Gregg v. Georgia the Supreme Court gave its seal of approval to capital punishment, this endorsement was premised on the promise that capital punishment would be administered with fairness and justice. Instead, the promise has become a cruel and empty mockery. If not remedied, the scandalous state of our present system of capital punishment will cast a pall of shame over our society for years to come. We cannot let it continue.
There's an awful lot about our criminal justice system that is dysfunctional. Everyone who sets foot in a criminal courtroom will see myriad ways the system is dysfunctional.
Related Authors
Brett Kavanaugh Quotes
American
Judge
Clarence Thomas Quotes
American
Judge
Earl Warren Quotes
American
Judge
Felix Frankfurter Quotes
American
Judge
Hugo Black Quotes
American
Judge
Learned Hand Quotes
American
Judge
Louis D. Brandeis Quotes
American
Judge
Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Quotes
American
Judge
Robert H. Jackson Quotes
American
Judge
Robert Rinder Quotes
English
Judge
Ruth Bader Ginsburg Quotes
American
Judge
Samuel Alito Quotes
American
Judge
Sandra Day O'Connor Quotes
American
Judge
Sonia Sotomayor Quotes
American
Judge
Thurgood Marshall Quotes
American
Judge
William O. Douglas Quotes
American
Judge