The prosecution has an ethical duty to ensure not just that they get a conviction when the defendant is guilty, but also to ensure that they get it by means of fair trial, and that means a fair trial for the defense as well as the prosecution.
Interpretation
The prosecution must ensure both justice and fairness in trials, protecting the rights of the defense as well.
In this quote, Marcia Clark emphasizes the dual responsibility of the prosecution in legal cases: not only must they seek to convict those who are guilty, but they are also ethically bound to uphold the principles of a fair trial. This encompasses the rights of the defense, highlighting that true justice cannot be achieved without ensuring that all parties receive fair treatment under the law, which is critical for the integrity of the judicial system.
In practice
This quote can be used in a courtroom setting to remind legal professionals of their ethical obligations.
It is not a charity but a right, not bounty but justice, that I am pleading for. The present state of civilization is as odious as it is unjust. It is absolutely the opposite of what it should be, and it is necessary that a revolution should be made in it. The contrast of affluence and wretchedness continually meeting and offending the eye, is like dead and living bodies chained together
In the US the overwhelming majority of those executed are psychotic, alcoholic, drug addicted or mentally unstable. They frequently are raised in an impoverished and abusive environment. Seldom are people with money or prestige convicted of capital offenses, even more seldom are they executed.
So much of America's tragic and costly failure to care for all its children stems from our tendency to distinguish between our own children and other people's children--as if justice were divisible.
Circumstances of crimes vary. So do motives. And so do prospects for rehabilitation. The number of imponderables makes it impossible to sentence by formula and still sentence justly.
Uninformed and yet open to appeals for justice as they are, Americans are capable of reacting as they did to the ANC campaign against apartheid, which finally changed the balance of forces inside South Africa.
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizens Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to order than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice.
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