Criminal Defense Attorney Quotes & Sayings

I'm an appellate criminal defense attorney. I'm used to losing. — Vanessa Place

One of the people that wrote a forward to my book is Gerry Spence, whom I admire. Gerry is a friend of mine, and Gerry's perhaps the leading criminal defense attorney in the country. — Vincent Bugliosi

There is no client as scary as an innocent man.
J. Michael Haller, Criminal Defense Attorney, Los Angeles, 1962. — Michael Connelly

To be an effective criminal defense counsel, an attorney must be prepared to be demanding, outrageous, irreverent, blasphemous, a rogue, a renegade, and a hated, isolated, and lonely person - few love a spokesman for the despised and the damned. — Clarence Darrow

For a lawyer to do less than his utmost is, I strongly feel, a betrayal of his client. Though in criminal trials one tends to focus on the defense attorney and his client the accused, the prosecutor is also a lawyer, and he too has a client: the People. And the People are equally entitled to their day in court, to a fair and impartial trial, and to justice. — Vincent Bugliosi

This is unjust. The questionnaire includes circumstances of a criminal's birth and upbringing, including his or her family, neighborhood, and friends. These details should not be relevant to a criminal case or to the sentencing. Indeed, if a prosecutor attempted to tar a defendant by mentioning his brother's criminal record or the high crime rate in his neighborhood, a decent defense attorney would roar, "Objection, Your Honor!" And a serious judge would sustain it. This is the basis of our legal system. We are judged by what we do, not by who we are. And although we don't know the exact weights that are attached to these parts of the test, any weight above zero is unreasonable. — Cathy O'Neil