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I don't think the law exists to arrive at the truth. If it did, we wouldn't have exclusionary rules, we wouldn't have presumptions of innocence, we wouldn't have proof beyond reasonable doubt. There's an enormous difference between the role of truth in law and the role of truth in science. In law, truth is one among many goals.

Alan Dershowitz

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Alan Dershowitz
Age: 86
Born: 1938
Born: September 1
Lawyer
Screenwriter
University Teacher
Brooklyn
New York
Alan M. Dershowitz
Alan Morton Dershowitz
Law
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Arrive
Goal
Among
Innocence
Science
Difference
Reasonable
Truth
Wouldn
Goals
Many
Beyond
Proof
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Exists
Exclusionary
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Differences
Enormous
Presumptions
Doubt
Rules
Presumption

More quotes by Alan Dershowitz

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There is no perfect justice, just as there is no absolute in ethics. But there is perfect injustice, and we know it when we see it.
Alan Dershowitz
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I've thought of publishing a book of my hate mail, but I don't own the rights to the letters.
Alan Dershowitz
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The Second Amendment has no place in modern society.
Alan Dershowitz
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President Obama has earned my vote on the basis of his excellent judicial appointments, his consensus-building foreign policy and the improvements he has brought about in the disastrous economy he inherited.
Alan Dershowitz
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Twenty five percent of Israeli citizens are not even Jewish. Anybody can become an Israeli citizen if you qualify. Religion is not a criterion for citizenship.
Alan Dershowitz
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The Israeli military plays more than a critical role in defending the citizens of the Jewish state. It also plays an important social, scientific and psychological role in preparing its young citizens for the challenging task of being Israelis in a difficult world.
Alan Dershowitz
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Doing something because God has said to do it does not make a person moral: it merely tells us that person is a prudential believer, akin to the person who obeys the command of an all-powerful secular king.
Alan Dershowitz
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Laws are important precisely because in a democracy they reflect the attitudes and aspirations of those they govern.
Alan Dershowitz
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I've written important articles on prevention, on the concept of the preventive state, how the law is moving much more in an area of trying to prevent wrongs than trying to deal with them after they occur. That will be my academic/intellectual legacy.
Alan Dershowitz
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On television and in the movies, crimes are always solved. Nothing is left uncertain. By the end, the viewer knows whodunit. In real life, on the other hand, many murders remain unsolved, and even some that are solved to the satisfaction of the police and prosecutors lack sufficient evidence to result in a conviction.
Alan Dershowitz
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I think that lawyers are terrible at admitting that they're wrong. And not just admitting it - also realizing it.
Alan Dershowitz
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I know Obama, I like Obama, I voted for Obama.
Alan Dershowitz
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The law is agnostic about truth. It's very skeptical of ultimate truth. That's why freedom of speech permits lies to be told.
Alan Dershowitz
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Candor and accountability in a democracy is very important. Hypocrisy has no place.
Alan Dershowitz
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You can't think about terrorism without thinking about Palestinian terrorism. Palestinians began international terrorism. It started with them in 1968. They used it as the first resort, not the last resort. They invented it, they perfected it, they benefited from it and they taught the world how to use it and that it would be successful.
Alan Dershowitz
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The prosecution wants to make sure the process by which the evidence was obtained is not truthfully presented, because, as often as not, that process will raise questions.
Alan Dershowitz
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It is the wall of separation between church and state . . . that is largely responsible for religion thriving in this country, as compared to those European countries in which church and state have been united, resulting in opposition to the church by those who disapprove of the government.
Alan Dershowitz
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I think that lawyers are terrible at admitting that they're wrong. And not just admitting it also realizing it. Most lawyers are very successful, and they think that because they're making money and people think well of them, they must be doing everything right.
Alan Dershowitz
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I came from a poor family, so working and going to school at the same time was natural. It taught me multi-tasking, although we didn't call it that back then. I learned I could never be idle, I need to be doing many things at once.
Alan Dershowitz
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In the Pentagon Papers case, the government asserted in the Supreme Court that the publication of the material was a threat to national security. It turned out it was not a threat to U.S. security. But even if it had been, that doesn't mean that it couldn't be published.
Alan Dershowitz