Tim McVeigh's Quote

[Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com>]

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The mentally challenged in the audience couldn't figure out what McVeigh was 
saying with his Brandeis quote at the sentencing hearing.  I think we can 
probably figure it out.

It is from Brandeis' dissent in OLMSTEAD v. U.S., 277 U.S. 438 (1928) one of 
the first *wiretapping* cases.  Here is the whole of the concluding paragraph 
with the quoted portion in square brackets:

http://www.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=277&invol=438

"Decency, security, and liberty alike demand that government officials shall 
be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. 
In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it 
fails to observe the law scrupulously. [Our government is the potent, the 
omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its 
example.] Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it 
breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; 
it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law 
the end justifies the means-to declare that the government may commit crimes 
in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal-would bring terrible 
retribution. Against that pernicious doctrine this court should resolutely 
set its face."

DCF





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