Not a law firm in the entire city of New York bid for my employment as a lawyer when I earned my degree.
Ruth Bader GinsburgRead
People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty.
Interpretation
Fair legal representation can significantly influence the outcome of a trial, potentially saving lives.
Ruth Bader Ginsburg emphasizes the critical importance of competent legal representation in the judicial system. This quote underscores the idea that individuals who have access to effective legal counsel are less likely to receive the death penalty, highlighting systemic inequalities in the legal process that can ultimately determine life or death.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about legal reforms during a public forum on justice.
Not a law firm in the entire city of New York bid for my employment as a lawyer when I earned my degree.
If you want to influence people, you want them to accept your suggestions, you don't say, 'You don't know how to use the English language,' or 'How could you make that argument?' It will be welcomed much more if you have a gentle touch than if you are aggressive.
I try to teach through my opinions, through my speeches, how wrong it is to judge people on the basis of what they look like, color of their skin, whether they're men or women.
The worst times were the years I was alone. The image to the public entering the courtroom was eight men, of a certain size, and then this little woman sitting to the side. That was not a good image for the public to see.
A constitution, as important as it is, will mean nothing unless the people are yearning for liberty and freedom.
My resume showed membership on both the Harvard and Columbia Law Reviews, a credit impressive abroad where it was not generally known that Law Reviews were student-operated publications.
The legal system is designed to protect men from the superior power of the state but not to protect women or children from the superior power of men. It therefore provides strong guarantees for the rights of the accused but essentially no guarantees for the rights of the victim. If one set out by design to devise a system for provoking intrusive post-traumatic symptoms, one could not do better than a court of law.
But I really think it's a very unfortunate part of our judicial system and I would feel much, much better if more states would really consider whether they think the benefits outweigh the very serious potential injustice, because in these cases the emotions are very, very high on both sides and to have stakes as high as you do in these cases, there is a special potential for error. We cannot ignore the fact that in recent years a disturbing number of inmates on death row have been exonerated.
Justice should be blind especially color-blind and able to fairly deal with the very real need for honest law enforcement.
We cannot afford to regard as normal the presence of injustice, inhumanity, and violence, including their verbal and cyber manifestations.
Power concedes nothing without a demand. The struggle for justice must never be adjourned. The forces of injustice do not take vacations.
If you're not thinking about the way systemic bias can be propagated through the criminal justice system or predictive policing, then it's very likely that, if you're designing a system based on historical data, you're going to be perpetuating those biases.
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