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Extracted Text (OCR)
4.2.12
WC: 191694
some of his fellow judges, especially Warren Burger. Sparks would fly and Bazelon generally
ended up in dissent, but he had made his point.
Years later, in my first popular book, The Best Defense, I summarized what I had first seen in
Judge Bazelon’s chambers and had then experienced in several cases I had litigated as a practicing
lawyer. I called my summary “The Rules of the Justice Game:”
Rule I: Almost all criminal defendants are, in fact, guilty.
Rule IT: All criminal defense lawyers, prosecutors and judges understand and believe Rule
ke
Rule III: It is easier to convict guilty defendants by violating the Constitution than by
complying with it, and in some cases it is impossible to convict guilty defendants
without violating the Constitution.
Rule IV: Almost all police lie about whether they violated the Constitution in order to
convict guilty defendants.
Rule V: All prosecutors, judges and defense attorneys are aware of Rule IV.
Rule VI: Many prosecutors implicitly encourage police to lie about whether they violated
the Constitution in order to convict guilty defendants.
Rule VII: All judges are aware of Rule VI.
Rule VIII: Most trial judges pretend to believe police officers who they know are lying.
Rule IX: All appellate judges are aware of Rule VII, yet many pretend to believe the trial
judges who pretend to believe the lying police officers.
Rule X: Most judges disbelieve defendants about whether their constitutional rights have
been violated, even if they are telling the truth.
Rule XI: Most judges and prosecutors would not knowingly convict a defendant who they
believe to be innocent of the crime charged (or a closely related crime).
Rule XII: Rule XI does not apply to members of organized crime, drug dealers, career
criminals, or potential informers.
Rule XIII: [Almost] Nobody really wants justice.
The seeds of my career as a criminal lawyer were planted deeply into fertile soil during my
clerkship. So were the seeds of my career as an academic who focused, early in my years at
Harvard, on the relationship between law and the social sciences, especially psychiatry and
psychology.
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