Quote

Guilt or innocence becomes irrelevant in the criminal trials as we flounder in a morass of artificial rules poorly conceived and often impossible [to apply].

Warren E. Burger

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Warren E. Burger
Age: 87 †
Born: 1907
Born: September 17
Died: 1995
Died: June 25
Former Chief Justice Of The United States
Judge
Lawyer
Politician
St Paul
Minnesota
Warren Earl Burger
Trials
Morass
Criminals
Poorly
Guilt
Conceived
Rules
Irrelevant
Becomes
Apply
Impossible
Criminal
Justice
Artificial
Often
Innocence
Flounder

More quotes by Warren E. Burger

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The president's need for complete candor and objectivity from advisers calls for great deference from the courts.
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We may be well on our way to a society overrun by hordes of lawyers, hungry as locusts, and brigades of judges in numbers never before contemplated.
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The right of every person to be let alone must be placed in the scales with the right of others to communicate.
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Crime and the fear of crime have permeated the fabric of American life.
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A far greater factor than abolishing poverty is the deterrent effect of swift and certain consequences: swift arrest, prompt trial, certain penalty and - at some point - finality of judgment.
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Trials by the adversarial contest must in time go the way of the ancient trial by battle and blood.
Warren E. Burger
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There can be no assumption that today's majority is right and the Amish or others like them are wrong. A way of life that is odd or even erratic but interferes with no right or interests of others is not to be condemned because it is different.
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Doctors still retain a high degree of public confidence because they are perceived as healers. Should lawyers not be healers? Healers, not warriors? Healers, not procurers? Healers, not hired guns?
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The policeman on the beat or in the patrol car makes more decisions and exercises broader discretion affecting the daily lives of people every day and to a greater extent, in many respects, than a judge will ordinarily exercise in a week.
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Concepts of justice must have hands and feet...to carry out justice in every case in the shortest possible time and the lowest possible cost. This is the challenge to every lawyer and judge in America.
Warren E. Burger
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For better or worse, editing is what editors are for and editing is selection and choice of material. That editors newspaper or broadcast can and do abuse this power is beyond doubt, but that is no reason to deny the discretion Congress provided.
Warren E. Burger
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There are many prices we pay for freedoms secured by the First Amendment the risk of undue influence is one of them, confirming what we have long known: Freedom is hazardous, but some restraints are worse.
Warren E. Burger
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[I]n constitutional adjudication some steps, which when taken were thought to approach 'the verge,' have become the platform for yet further steps. A certain momentum develops in constitutional theory and it can be a 'downhill thrust' easily set in motion but difficult to retard or stop.
Warren E. Burger
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The trial of a case is a three-legged stool - a judge and two advocates.
Warren E. Burger
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The State may justify a limitation on religious liberty by showing it is essential to accomplish an overriding governmental interest.
Warren E. Burger
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[No one will be able to] deter the scientific mind from probing into the unknown any more than Canute could command the tides.
Warren E. Burger
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The Constitution does not require complete separation of church and state it affirmatively mandates accommodation, not merely tolerance, of all religions, and forbids hostility toward any.
Warren E. Burger
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The notion that most people want black-robed judges, well-dressed lawyers and fine-paneled courtrooms as the setting to resolve their disputes is not correct. People with problems, like people with pains, want relief, and they want it as quickly and inexpensively as possible.
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Calculated risks of abuse are taken in order to preserve higher values.
Warren E. Burger
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There may be some incorrigible human beings who cannot be changed except by God's own mercy to that one person.
Warren E. Burger