"If the prosecutor is obliged to choose his cases, it follows that he can choose his defendants. Therein is the most dangerous power of the prosecutor: that he will pick people that he thinks he should get, rather than pick cases that need to be prosecuted. With the law books filled with a great assortment of crimes, a prosecutor stands a fair chance of finding at least a technical violation of some act on the part of almost anyone. In such a case, it is not a question of discovering the commission of a crime and then looking for the man who has committed it, it is a question of picking the man and then searching the law books, or putting investigators to work, to pin some offense on him. It is in this realm-in which the prosecutor picks some person whom he dislikes or desires to embarrass, or selects some group of unpopular persons and then looks for an offense, that the greatest danger of abuse of prosecuting power lies. It is here that law enforcement becomes personal, and the real crime becomes that of being unpopular with the predominant or governing group, being attached to the wrong political views, or being personally obnoxious to or in the way of the prosecutor himself."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Justices of the Supreme Court of the United StatesJudges from the United StatesLawyers from New York (state)United States Attorneys GeneralEpiscopalians from the United States
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Robert_H._Jackson
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Robert H. Jackson
1938 – 1940
Robert Houghwout Jackson (February 13, 1892 – October 9, 1954) was United States Solicitor General (1938–1940), United States Attorney General (1940–1941) and an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court (1941–1954). He is the only person in United States history to have held all three of those offices. He was also the chief United States prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials.
114 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Robert H. Jackson →
Related Quotes
"There is no such thing as an achieved liberty; like electricity, there can be no substantial storage and it must be g…"
"Not every defeat of authority is a gain for individual freedom, nor every judicial rescue of a convict a victory for …"
"These powers have been granted to our law-enforcement agencies because it seems necessary that such a power to prosec…"
"A Government to perform even a minimum of service to its people, must take steps to suppress avarice, to strike down …"
"It is Mr. Mellon's credo that $200,000,000 can do no wrong. Our offense consists in doubting it."
"No longer may the head of a state consider himself outside of the law, and impose inhuman acts on the peoples of the …"
"The power of citizenship as a shield against oppression was widely known from the example of Paul's Roman citizenship…"
"The office of the lawyer, however poorly filled, is too delicate, personal and confidential to be occupied by a corpo…"
"Our people do not want barren theories from their democracy. Maury Maverick has expressed very quaintly, but clearly,…"
"It is hardly lack of due process for the Government to regulate that which it subsidizes."