Prosecutors Quotes

“Even without all the independent evidence proving that Oswald killed Kennedy, it was obvious that Oswald’s murder of Tippit alone proved it was he who murdered Kennedy.”
― Vincent Bugliosi, Reclaiming History – The Assassination of John F Kennedy

“When in court, the primary role of lawyers is not to prove or disprove innocence; unbeknown to almost all lawyers and their clients, it is to save the court time.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana

“Somewhere along the way, the balance of power between the prosecution, the defense, and the judiciary shifted. We have to readjust it. The stakes are so high—the well-being of so many communities and the trajectories of so many lives. Public safety depends on our collective faith in fairness and our view of the law as legitimate.”
― Emily Bazelon, Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration

“Countries who don’t have brave prosecutors and fearless judges will instead have plenty of thieves, many killers and even stupid dictators!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“If you are unfortunate enough to be involved in legal action, you’ve got to realize that it’s a three-way fight: There’s you, there’s your opponent, and there’s your lawyer. And your lawyer is not on your side. His job is to get as much money as possible out of you, frequently in collusion with the other side’s lawyer, and then move on to another client.”
― Peter Brimelow

“It's kind of funny to me listening to people who claim to have these great records of winning a hundred and some odd straight felony cases without a loss and that kind of stuff that you hear of all the time. I'm here to tell you, if you let me pick out which hundred cases I get to try, I'll win a hundred of them in a row, too. Case selection is everything in creating records like that. My philosophy was, I tried them all. If I made a determination that the evidence was sufficient to justify the prosecution, then I would try the case, and certainly whenever you do that, you're going to lose a certain percentage of them.”
― Mark Baker, D.A.: Prosecutors in Their Own Words

“tough on crime" prosecutors do not lower crime, and more right-wing states with harsher sentencing policies have higher murder rates.”
― Alec Karakatsanis, Copaganda: How Police and the Media Manipulate Our News

“He had spent so long working with the police, everything was a conspiracy to him.”
― Kenneth Eade, Unreasonable Force

“The victims I’ve worked with taught me that individuals want to believe they are entitled to justice. My community taught me that when the choice is clear-cut enough, so do entire counties.

We have become profoundly discouraged about whether we have such choices. My own experience is that we do, if we are willing to pay the price. We need better data to make decisions based on performance, but getting that data is a matter of passing the right laws requiring crunchable statistics and mandatory public reports. The rest is on us. If Tip O’Neil was right, if all politics is local, then our local district attorneys are the place to start. Crime is local. What we do about it is as close as the nearest voting booth.”
― Alice Vachss, Sex Crimes: Then and Now: My Years on the Front Lines Prosecuting Rapists and Confronting Their Collaborators

“Most prosecutors' offices lack any manual or guidebook advising prosecutors how to make discretionary decisions. Even the American Bar Association's standards of practice for prosecutors are purely aspirational; no prosecutor is required to follow the standards or even consider them.”
― Michelle alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

“It's kind of funny to me listening to [prosecutors] who claim to have these great records of winning a hundred and some odd straight felony cases without a loss and that kind of stuff that you hear of all the time. I'm here to tell you, if you let me pick out which hundred cases I get to try, I'll win a hundred of them in a row too. Case selection is everything in creating records like that. My philosophy was, I tried them all. If I made a determination that the evidence was sufficient to justify the prosecution, then I would try the case, and certainly whenever you do that, you're going to lose a certain percentage of them.”
― Mark Baker

“The other amazing thing about prosecution that prosecutors don't realize while they are in the job is the time they have available to them as opposed to lawyers in the private practice of law. Prosecutors have an incredible amount of time to sit with one another around their offices and talk. Talk about war stories. Talk about this or that cop. Talk about the case. That's what floored me the most when I got out of it - how much free time I'd had and didn't realize it.”
― Mark Baker

“It's kind of funny to me listening to people who claim to have these great records of winning a hundred and some odd straight felony cases without a loss and that kind of stuff that you hear all the time. I'm here to tell you, if you let me pick out which hundred cases I get to try, I'll win a hundred of them in a row, too. Case selection is everything in creating records like that. My philosophy was, I tried them all. If I made a determination that the evidence was sufficient to justify the prosecution, then I would try the case, and certainly whenever you do that, you're going to lose a certain percentage of them.”
― Mark Baker

“When boxed-in and bleeding, prosecutors often become wildly creative with new theories of guilt.”
― John Grisham, The Guardians

“By 'Perry Mason moment,' I mean that climactic instant during a trial when you have just done something fantastic and everyone in the courtroom knows it. Your brilliant question or some stunning admission you coerced from a witness has left the opposing lawyer reeling, his mouth agape, and jurors amazed and entertained. The case is won; the rest of the trial is a formality. Your friends and colleagues are itching to congratulate you as soon as a recess is called. Only a supreme effort of will on your part, coupled with the knowledge that the judge and jurors are watching, keeps you from high-fiving everyone in sight.”
― Morley Swingle, Scoundrels to the Hoosegow: Perry Mason Moments and Entertaining Cases from the Files of a Prosecuting Attorney