Vincent Bugliosi Quotes

I, for one, can't be sure at all there is a God.

It's unbelievable, there's a book out attacking Gore, when he's the most unfortunate loser in political history.

You might not agree with me, but I always offer a lot of support.

This is America, not a banana republic.

Though there are some notable exceptions, by and large the persistent ranting of the Warren Commission critics, some of whom were screaming the word 'conspiracy' before the fatal bullet had even come to rest, came to remind me, as H. L. Mencken said in a different context, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights.

I believe that the question of the existence of God is an impenetrable mystery and beyond human comprehension.

The very best testament to the validity of the Warren Commission's findings is that after an unrelenting, close to forty-five-year effort, the Commission's fiercest critics have not been able to produce any new credible evidence that would in any way justify a different conclusion.

Garretson recalled that he drank four beers, smoked two joints,

Since we place so much value on human life, why do we glorify, in a perverse sort of way, the extinguishment of life? The answer to that question, whatever it is, is at least a partial answer to why people continue to be fascinated by Hitler, Jack the Ripper - Manson.

The reality is that most celebrity defendants are extremely unknowledgeable, naive, and vulnerable, and if they get into trouble, they usually call their lawyer friends who handle criminal cases, and if they don't know any, they call their business lawyers, who then refer them to lawyer friends of theirs.

If you're honest with yourself, you're going to find out whether you truly love America, or whether your primary allegiance is to the Republican party.

As a trial lawyer, intelligence is important only in the sense that it allows you to play the game, if you will. Without it, you don't even have a ticket into the competitive arena. But beyond that, it doesn't get you very far at all.

I am more excited about 'Divinity of Doubt: The God Question' than any other book in my entire career, and I've had seven New York Times bestsellers, three of them reaching number one.

I was at a book convention, in a cab. On one side of me was Arthur Schlesinger; on the other side was William Manchester - real heavyweights. All they were doing was asking me about Charles Manson. The only thing that enables me not to be bored is the people talking about it - they're so interested.

A tactic used by authors of virtually every single book I've ever read that propounds a conspiracy theory is to attack an agency as being part of a conspiracy in the Kennedy assassination, but when this same agency comes up with something favorable to the author's position, the author will cite that same agency as credible support for his argument.

The Florida Supreme Court wanted all the legal votes to be counted. The United States Supreme Court, on the other hand, did not want all the votes to be counted.

It's my view that any conservative who loves his country has to be extremely concerned.

Doubt ... impels a search for the truth. It opens the door to knowledge. Faith puts a lock on the door. Indeed, ... faith anesthetizes the desire to seek knowledge and truth.

Noting that it would be a long trial, with many witnesses, I recall the old Chinese proverb, "The palest ink is better than the best memory," urging the jury to take detailed notes to aid them in their deliberations.

It was OK for the media to pursue Former President Clinton year after year for lying about a private, consensual sexual affair, but we have five justices who committed one of the biggest crimes in American History, and it ceased to be a big story.

If it's a close election, then it's better for the Supreme Court to pick the president, whether or not he won the election. It's just insane on its face.

I may have implied on several occasions to several different people that I may have been Jesus Christ, but I haven't decided yet what I am or who I am.

A national legal organization is giving very serious thought to using The Betrayal of America as a legal basis for asking the House Judiciary Committee to institute impeachment proceedings against these five justices.

The most effective cross-examination of Linda Kasabian was surprisingly that of Ronald Hughes. Though this was his first trial, and he frequently made procedural mistakes, Hughes was familiar with the hippie subculture, having been a part of it. He knew about drugs, mysticism, karma, auras, vibrations, and when he questioned Linda about these things, he made her look just a little odd, just a wee bit zingy. He had her admitting that she believed in ESP, that there were times at Spahn when she actually felt she was a witch.
Q. "Do you feel that you are controlled by Mr. Manson's vibrations?"
A. "Possibly."
Q. "Did he put off a lot of vibes?"
A. "Sure, he's doing it right now."
Hughes "May the record reflect, Your Honor, that Mr. Manson is merely sitting here."
Kanarek "He doesn't seem to be vibrating.

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.

The question in the Simpson case has never been whether he is guilty or not guilty but, given the facts and circumstances of this case, whether it is possible for him to be innocent. And the answer to that question has always been an unequivocal no.

If Lee Harvey Oswald had nothing to do with President Kennedy's assassination and was framed ... this otherwise independent and defiant would-be revolutionary, who disliked taking orders from anyone, turned out to be the most willing and cooperative frame-ee in the history of mankind!! Because the evidence of his guilt is so monumental, that he could have just as well gone around with a large sign on his back declaring in bold letters 'I Just Murdered President John F. Kennedy'!!!

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.

These people have elevated audacity to symphonic and operatic levels. The Florida Supreme Court relied on new law to resolve the election dispute down there.

Nearly all Americans felt they knew JFK intimately, his charm and wit regularly lighting up the television screen at home. This is why polls showed that millions of Americans took his assassination like a 'death in the family.'

If anyone should be executed, it should be Charles Manson. Do I go around during the daytime, 'Geez, I'm upset that he's alive'? No, I don't even think about him. I don't think about this case.

I'm trying to finish my book on the Kennedy assassination.

I take no pride in having been the first public personality to come out publicly against Simpson. It just happened that way.

Sooner or later, all conspiracy theories, no matter how outlandish, must eventually rest a certain set of facts. And facts can be checked.

If there is one thing that I take pride in, it is the fact that I never, ever make a charge without offering a substantial amount of support for it. You may ultimately end up not agreeing with me, but you will have to concede that I offered much evidence in support of my position, something that people frequently do not do.

'Helter-Skelter' was the motive for the murders. Manson borrowed that term from a Beatles song on the 'White Album.' In England, helter-skelter is a playground ride. To Manson, helter-skelter meant a war between whites and blacks that the Beatles were in favor of.

The conspiracy community regularly seizes on one slip of the tongue, misunderstanding, or slight discrepancy to defeat twenty pieces of solid evidence; accepts one witness of theirs, even if he or she is a provable nut, as being far more credible than ten normal witnesses on the other side; treats rumors, even questions, as the equivalent of proof; leaps from the most minuscule of discoveries to the grandest of conclusions; and insists that the failure to explain everything perfectly negates all that is explained.

So I don't blame Boies for the decision of the Court at all.

No matter what I do, I'll be forever known as the Manson prosecutor.

Within the pages of The Betrayal of America I prove that these justices were absolutely up to no good, and they deliberately set out to hand the election to George Bush.

I start out with the assumption that a lawyer in a criminal case is going to be incompetent - substantially so. I find my assumption to be rarely wrong. Yet society starts out with the very opposite assumption.

The felonious five in their Supreme Court decision never said Gore did anything improperly in Florida.

Atheism is really nothing but a sorry litany of non-sequiturs, e.g., if God existed, why do we have all the evil and horrors in the world? But this presupposes that God is all-good, an obvious non-sequitur.

The votes of 60,000 Floridians were not counted. The Court threw out all 60,00 votes. And that's what the newspapers around the country are counting now.

I'm still angry with Simpson for getting by with two murders.

One day Manson tried with me. I stared right back, holding his gaze until his hands started shaking. During the recess, I slid my chair over next to his and asked, "What are you trembling about, Charlie? Are you afraid of me?"
"Bugliosi," he said, "you think I'm bad and I'm not."
"I don't think you're all bad, Charlie. For instance, I understand you love animals."
"Then you know I wouldn't hurt anyone," he said.
"Hitler loved animals too, Charlie. He had a dog named Blondie, and from what I've read, Adolf was very kind to Blondie.

I've actually had a copilot come out of the cockpit on a trip from L.A. to New York and ask me about Charles Manson.

I view myself primarily as a trial lawyer who happens to be writing, as opposed to a writer who happens to be a trial lawyer, so the audience is like a jury to me.

As a trial lawyer in front of a jury and an author of true-crime books, credibility has always meant everything to me. My only master and my only mistress are the facts and objectivity. I have no others.

The very name 'Manson' has become a metaphor for evil ... He has come to represent the dark and malignant side of humanity, and for whatever reason, there is a side of human nature that is fascinated with ultimate evil.

explanation was that Manson had gone to the guest house that afternoon, found no one there (Altobelli was out most of the afternoon, making arrangements for his trip), then returned that evening. This was supported by Hatami's statement that Manson had come back up the path after "a minute or two, no more," which hardly left time for his conversation with Altobelli.

Yeah, I lost court cases and misdemeanor juries, but of felony jury trials I was successful 105 of 106 times.

All things and all people in life have to sink or swim on their own merits, not their reputation; that just as a wise man can say a foolish thing, a fool can say something wise.