Trial by Ambush: Murder, Injustice, and the Truth about the Case of Barbara Graham

by Marcia Clark

If witnesses hear one another, their memories will be distorted, or they’ll lose confidence in their own perceptions, or worst of all, they’ll be tempted to lie.

“I think it is a matter of rather common knowledge among those of us who have practiced law for a period of time, that the instances in which a client tells his attorney the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, are scarcer than those in which the converse is true.”

“if you throw a skunk into the jury box, you can’t instruct the jury not to smell it.”

a fair trial means the jury gets to know the unaltered truth, not the abridged version created by a prosecutor’s kaleidoscope twist that eliminates any evidence inconsistent with guilt.