MEET JUDGE LEARNED HAND [PRO DEATH PENALTY QUOTE OF THE WEEK ~ SUNDAY AUGUST 17, 2014 TO SATURDAY AUGUST 23, 2014]

Learned Hand

QUOTE: Our dangers do not lie in too little tenderness to the accused. Our procedure has been always haunted by the ghost of the innocent man convicted. It is an unreal dream. What we need to fear is the archaic formalism and the watery sentiment that obstructs, delays, and defeats the prosecution of crime.

AUTHOR: Billings Learned Hand (January 27, 1872 – August 18, 1961) was a United States judge and judicial philosopher. He served on the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York and later the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Hand has been quoted more often than any other lower-court judge by legal scholars and by the Supreme Court of the United States.