27 quotes
An important assumption underlying our commitment to freedom of expression is that truth is a process, not a product.
Shouting Fire: Civil liberties in a Turbulent Age (2002)
Judges are the weakest link in our system of justice and they are also the most protected.
The First Amendment is not limited to the right to be right; it also enshrines the right to be wrong.
Dershowitz is not only a remarkable liar and slanderer, but also an extreme opponent of elementary civil rights.
Rights come from human experience, particularly experiences with injustice… In a word, rights come from wrongs.
Shouting Fire: Civil liberties in a Turbulent Age (2002)
If there can be agreement that certain rights are essential to reduce the chances of perfect injustice, that constitutes the beginning of a solid theory of rights.
Shouting Fire: Civil liberties in a Turbulent Age (2002)
You know, being black doesn’t give you a license to call people racist any more than being Jewish gives you license to call people anti-Semitic.
Everybody is right when it comes to the issue of abortion.
The judge also has a truth he wants to hide: He often hasn't been completely candid in describing the facts or the law.
U.S. News & World Report (1982)
Elaine Kendall of the Los Angeles Times calls Dershowitz "the attorney of last resort for the desperate and despised, counselor for lost causes and forlorn hopes."
That is why a criminal trial is not a search for truth. Scientists search for truth. Philosophers search for morality. A criminal trial searches for only one result: proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
The courtroom oath—to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth—is applicable only to witnesses... because the American justice system is built on a foundation of not telling the whole entire truth.
I wasn’t wrong. I am just far more correct now than I was then.
But rights are not, as Justice Robert Jackson once reminded us, like a limited railroad ticket: good for this train at this day only. They are designed for all people and for an enduring period of time.
Shouting Fire: Civil liberties in a Turbulent Age (2002)
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.
U.S. News & World Report (1982)
But ‘group rights’ is an oxymoron. Groups, especially those with increasing political power, have interests and agendas, but they may not implement them by ignoring the rights of individuals, especially those within these groups who are disempowered and despised.
Shouting Fire: Civil liberties in a Turbulent Age (2002)
For those who believe in the inerrancy and absoluteness of natural law, both sides cannot be right. But the reality is that there may indeed be both a right to life and a right to choose, just as there may be a right to life and a right of individual or societal self-defense.
Shouting Fire: Civil liberties in a Turbulent Age (2002)
We hope that the end result is a just verdict that is also truthful, even though all sides in a trial want to hide at least some of the truth.
U.S. News & World Report (1982)
As one civil-liberties lawyer, who is concerned about the sometimes vigilante attitude toward accused rapists, puts it: "Some people regard rape as so heinous an offense that they would not even regard innocence as a defense."
Students throughout the totalitarian world risk life and limb for freedom of expression, many American college students are demanding that big brother restrict their freedom of speech on campus. This demand for enhanced censorship is not emanating only from the usual corner – the know-nothing fundamentalist right – it is coming from the radical, and increasingly not-so-radical left as well.
Shouting Fire: Civil liberties in a Turbulent Age (2002)