Robert Shapiro Quotes

The Vietnam War was causing people to get drafted; I had received a deferment to finish my undergraduate education, and in order to continue to get a deferment, you had to go to graduate school.

Our tradition in this country has not been to deny health information to interested individuals when they claim that they can handle it and are willing to pay for the cost of getting it.

I think that one of the motivating factors was in my last year of law school: we had a competition, and I won the competition; it was judged by several of the federal judges at the time. I got a tremendous amount of encouragement to pursue litigation from them at the time.

Criminal cases require strategy, and prosecutors should attempt to prove only what can be proved.

You must understand that if you indulge in revenge exclusively, it will come back to you, because those who are revenged upon - even if the whole world believes they deserve it - will in some way express exactly what was expressed towards them. Why perpetuate suffering, no matter how justified it may seem to be, if it only perpetuates suffering in the future for future generations?

Our constitutionally-based criminal justice system places a high value on protecting the innocent. Among its central tenets is the idea that it is better to let a guilty person go free than to convict someone without evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.

I've always kept my word, and my clients have always kept their word.

Not only did we play the race card, we dealt it from the bottom of the deck.

In court, jurors are admonished by the judge at every recess not to discuss the case or form any opinions until the case is given to them for deliberations. Of course, there is no such limitation on the public.

To me, the Holocaust stands alone as the most horrible human event in modern civilization.

I was interested in getting courtroom experience. When I was a young lawyer, the only way I could get real courtroom experience was in the criminal law field.

The 5th Amendment guarantees that defendants can't face 'double jeopardy,' which means the government can't prosecute a person a second time for the same crime if the jury returns a verdict. Only if the jury doesn't reach a decision can prosecutors elect to retry the case.

During my undergraduate training at UCLA, I was studying finance and securities; my particular interest was with mutual funds. Wanting to get into a high position at some of the companies that were doing that, I knew that law would be useful.

I have no better way of judging guilt or innocence than anyone else.