Guilty By Suspicion Quotes

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind; The thief doth fear each bush an officer.

Cassandra always hid when she read, though she never quite knew why. It was as if she couldn't shake the guilty suspicion that she was being lazy, that surrendering herself so completely to something so enjoyable must surely be wrong. But surrender she did. Let herself drop through the rabbit hole and into a tale of magic and mystery ...

I got the sneaking suspicion that the vampire was a couple of Peeps short of an Easter basket.

The most jealous and insecure are the ones who are guilty of betrayal. The ones who are the angriest are those who are pulling cons themselves, only to find out they’re being conned as well. A thief hates to be robbed, and a cheater always wants you to be loyal while they are being unfaithful. When suspicions arise and the questions start, they are always defensive, always volatile. A thief takes being robbed personally, the same way a player falls apart when he finds out he is being played.

Guilty conscience is the number one liar and the producer of suspicion.

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.

Police and prosecutors are morally and professionally obligated to make every effort to identify specious rape reports, safeguard the civil rights of rape suspects, and prevent the falsely accused from being convicted. At the same time, however, police and prosecutors are obligated to do everything in their power to identify individuals who have committed rape and ensure that the guilty are brought to justice. These two objectives are not mutually exclusive. A meticulous, expertly conducted investigation that begins by believing the victim is an essential part of prosecuting and, ultimately, convicting those who are guilty of rape. It also happens to be the best way to exonerate those who have been falsely accused. Rape victims provide police with more information--and better information--when detectives interview them from a position of trust rather than one of suspicion.

Fat Charlie had had no real liking for the police, but until now, he had still managed to cling to a fundamental trust in the natural order of things, a conviction that there was some kind of power--a Victorian might have thought of it as Providence--that ensured that the guilty would be punished while the innocent would be set free. This faith had collapsed in the face of recent events and had been replaced by the suspicion that he would spend the rest of his life pleading his innocence to a variety of implacable judges and tormenters, many of whom would look like Daisy, and that he would in all probability wake up in cell six the next morning to find that he had been transformed into an enormous cockroach. He had definitely been transported to the kind of maleficent universe that transformed people into cockroaches.

In the detective story, as in its mirror image, the Quest for the Grail, maps (the ritual of space) and timetables (the ritual of time) are desirable. Nature should reflect its human inhabitants, i.e., it should be the Great Good Place; for the more Eden-like it is, the greater the contradiction of murder. The country is preferable to the town, a well-to-do neighborhood (but not too well-to-do-or there will be a suspicion of ill-gotten gains) better than a slum. The corpse must shock not only because it is a corpse but also because, even for a corpse, it is shockingly out of place, as when a dog makes a mess on a drawing room carpet." (The guilty vicarage: Notes on the detective story, by an addict, Harper's Magazine, May 1948)

The family would come under suspicion,” he said, “and it might remain under suspicion for a long time—perhaps for ever. If one of the family was guilty it is possible that they themselves would not know which one. They would look at each other and—wonder … Yes, that’s what would be the worst of all. They themselves would not know which…

Wolfe regarded him. “Either, sir, you’re an ass or you’re masquerading as one. When there is evidence that you have murdered, there will be not a suspicion but a conviction. If I had evidence that one or more of you is guilty I wouldn’t sit here half the night, inviting you to jabber; I would phone the police to come and get you. Have you anything to say?

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind. —William Shakespeare

The physiology of the guilty alters his physiognomy making his psychology susceptible to suspicion.

For the Orthodox tradition, then, Adam's original sin affects the human race in its entirety, and it has consequences both on the physical and the moral level: it, results not only in sickness and physical death, but in moral weakness and paralysis. But does it also imply an inherited guilt? Here Orthodoxy is more guarded. Original sin is not to be interpreted in juridical or quasi-biological terms, as if it were some physical 'taint' of guilt, transmitted through sexual intercourse. This picture, which normally passes for the Augustinian view, is unacceptable to Orthodoxy. The doctrine of original sin means rather that we are born into an environment where it is easy to do evil and hard to do good; easy to hurt others, and hard to heal their wounds; easy to arouse men's suspicions, and hard to win their trust. It means that we are each of us conditioned by the solidarity of the human race in its accumulated wrong-doing and wrong-thinking, and hence wrong-being. And to this accumulation of wrong we have ourselves added by our own deliberate acts of sin. The gulf grows wider and wider. It is here, in the solidarity of the human race, that we find an explanation for the apparent unjustness of the doctrine of original sin. Why, we ask, should the entire human race suffer because of Adam's fall? Why should all be punished because of one man's sin? The answer is that human beings, made in the image of the Trinitarian God, are interdependent and coinherent. No man is an island. We are 'members one of another'(Eph. 4:25), and so any action, performed by any member of the human race, inevitably affects all the other members. Even though we are not, in the strict sense, guilty of the sins of others, yet we are somehow always involved.

Cassandra always hid when she read, though she never quite knew why. It was as if she couldn’t shake the guilty suspicion that she was being lazy, that surrendering herself so completely to something so enjoyable must surely be wrong. But surrender

Are you hurt? He didn’t hurt you, did he?” “No, miss, just my pride.” He cast her a rueful smile. “Don’t fret yourself over it. I’m fine.” It was only when he caught Captain Horn’s assessing glance that he realized he was behaving more like a servant than a fiancé. As he slid his hand around Miss Willis’s waist, ignoring her startled expression, he noticed that the pirate watched them with interest. “Such a touching scene.” Captain Horn’s face wore a look of suspicion and muted anger. “And to think I never guessed until now the grand passion going on beneath my very nose.” “Like Miss Willis said, she chose me.” Peter thrust out his chest, affecting a protective stance . . . a little too late unfortunately. “She probably told you that she and I became friendly on the Chastity” It was the story both he and Miss Willis had agreed upon last night, though they knew some would find it less than convincing. Apparently the captain was one of them. “She did claim something like that.” Claim. Clearly the man didn’t believe either one of them. Then the scourge of the seas cast a low, lascivious, glance over Miss Willis, making her tremble beneath Petey’s arm. “She and I have also become quite ‘friendly’ in the past two days. Haven’t we, Sara?” Petey turned to her, surprised to find her blushing furiously. She cast a guilty look, then lowered her gaze to her hands. “I-I don’t know what you’re t-talking about.” “Of course not,” the captain ground out. “I should’ve expected a two-faced English lady like you to deny the truth about our ‘friendship.’ Well, you may deny it to me, and you may even deny it to this sailor of yours.” He lowered his voice to a threatening hum. “But you’ll have a hell of a hard time denying it to yourself.

See ye not then, shipmates, that Jonah sought to flee world-wide from God? Miserable man! Oh! Most contemptible and worthy of all scorn; with slouched hat and guilty eye, skulking from his God; prowling among the shipping like a vile burglar hastening to cross the seas. So disordered, self-condemning is his look, that had there been policemen in those days, Jonah, on the mere suspicion of something wrong, had been arrested ere he touched a deck.

In California v. Hodari D. in 1991, the Court held that a person who is being chased by the police is not considered to be seized until he or she is actually tackled by the officer; chasing the individual does not constitute a seizure within the meaning of the Fourth Amendment.63 But fifteen states have rejected this idea and said that under their state constitutions, chasing a suspect is sufficient to constitute a seizure and thus requires at least reasonable suspicion.64

The best method for acquiring scientific data is direct observation. Nothing beats watching a subject in action. But scientist have an easier time gazing at intergalactic quasars than peeking into someone's bedroom. Quasars don't close the curtains out of modesty of suspicion. In contrast, most of us are unwilling to let curious scientists photograph us as we tumble between the sheets. Radio waves may be invisible, but they don't try do deceive curious physicists and they are incapable of self-deception. Humans are guilty of both.

Can any position be more wretched than that of the unhappy father who, when he clasps his child to his breast, is haunted by the suspicion that this is the child of another, the badge of his own dishonor, a thief who is robbing his own children of their inheritance. Under such circumstances the family is little more than a group of secret enemies, armed against each other by a guilty woman, who compels them to pretend to love one another. Thus it is not enough that a wife should be faithful; her husband, along with his friends and neighbors, must believe in her fidelity; she must be modest, devoted, retiring; she should have the witness not only of a good conscience, but of a good reputation. In a word, if a father must love his children, he must be able to respect their mother. For these reasons it is not enough that the woman should be chaste, she must preserve her reputation and her good name. From these principles there arises not only a moral difference between the sexes, but also a fresh motive for duty and propriety, which prescribes to women in particular the most scrupulous attention to their conduct, their manners, their behavior.

Men have before hired bravos to transact their crimes, while their own person and reputation sat under shelter. I was the first that ever did so for his pleasures. I was the first that could plod in the public eye with a load of genial respectability, and in a moment, like a schoolboy, strip off these lendings and spring headlong into the sea of liberty. But for me, in my impenetrable mantle, the safety was complete. Think of it-I did not even exist! Let me but escape into my laboratory door, give me but a second or two to mix and swallow the draught that I had always standing ready; and whatever he had done, Edward Hyde would pass away like the stain of breath upon a mirror; and there in his stead, quietly at home, trimming the midnight lamp in his study, a man who could afford to laugh at suspicion, would be Henry Jekyll. The pleasures which I made haste to seek in my disguise were, as I have said, undignified; I would scarce use a harder term. But in the hands of Edward Hyde, they soon began to turn toward the monstrous. When I would come back from these excursions, I was often plunged into a kind of wonder at my vicarious depravity. This familiar that I called out of my own soul, and sent forth alone to do his good pleasure, was a being inherently malign and villainous; his every act and thought centered on self; drinking pleasure with bestial avidity from any degree of torture to another; relentless like a man of stone. Henry Jekyll stood at times aghast before the acts of Edward Hyde; but the situation was apart from ordinary laws, and insidiously relaxed the grasp of conscience. It was Hyde, after all, and Hyde alone, that was guilty. Jekyll was no worse; he woke again to his good qualities seemingly unimpaired; he would even make haste, where it was possible, to undo the evil done by Hyde. And thus his conscience slumbered.

Zachary had never accepted defeat before. He'd tolerated it in small doses, perhaps, always knowing that in the larger scheme of things, he would have what he wanted. But he'd never been truly vanquished, never known a real loss. Until this, the biggest loss of all. It made him feel vicious and a bit crazed. He wanted to kill someone. He wanted to weep. Most of all he wanted to laugh at himself for being a big sodding fool. In the nonsensical stories that Holly read aloud some evenings about Greeks and their amorous, carelessly cruel gods, mortals were always punished for reaching too high. Hubris, Holly had once explained. Too much prideful ambition. Zachary knew he had been guilty of hubris, and now he was paying the price. He should never have let himself want a woman who was clearly not meant for him. What tormented him the most was the suspicion that he might actually still be able to obtain her, if he bullied and tormented and bribed her into it. But he wouldn't do that to her, or to himself. He wanted her to love him as willingly and joyously as she had loved George. The very idea would have made most people laugh. It even amused him. What must Holly think when she compared him to her saintly husband? Zachary was a scoundrel, an opportunist, a rough-mannered scavenger—the definitive opposite of a gentleman. Clearly Ravenhill was the right choice, the only choice, if she wanted a life similar to the one she'd had with George.

My client comes into the courtroom with baggage because we do not have the presumption of innocence in America. Truth is, we have the assumption of guilt, and it starts the minute somebody is arrested. Nobody says “an innocent person was arrested today on suspicion of murder.” What happens is the Chief of Police, the District Attorney, and everybody else who is looking to get on television has a press conference and says “We have solved a crime. We have arrested and have in custody the person who did it. He will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” And then a lawyer comes along at some point and either says “no comment” or “my client’s not guilty,” but nobody believes, so my job as a lawyer is to try to level the playing field.

He knew how the audition was going to affect their lives for the next ten weeks as she slowly lost her mind from nerves and the strain of trying to scrounge precious practice time from an already jam-packed life. No matter how much time poor Sam gave her, it would never be quite enough, because what she actually needed was for him and the kids to just temporarily not exist. She needed to slip into another dimension where she was a single, childless person. Just between now and the audition. She needed to go to a mountain chalet (somewhere with good acoustics) and live and breathe nothing but music. Go for walks. Meditate. Eat well. Do all those positive-visualization exercises young musicians did these days. She had an awful suspicion that if she were to do this in reality, she might not even miss Sam and the children that much, or if she did miss them, it would be quite bearable.

Such a touching scene.” Captain Horn’s face wore a look of suspicion and muted anger. “And to think I never guessed until now the grand passion going on beneath my very nose.” “Like Miss Willis said, she chose me.” Peter thrust out his chest, affecting a protective stance…a little too late, unfortunately. “She probably told you that she and I became friendly on the Chastity.” It was the story both he and Miss Willis had agreed upon last night, though they’d known some would find it less than convincing. Apparently the captain was one of them. “She did claim something like that.” Claim. Clearly the man didn’t believe either of them. Then the scourge of the seas cast a slow, lascivious glance over Miss Willis, making her tremble beneath Petey’s arm. “She and I have also become quite ‘friendly’ in the past two days. Haven’t we, Sara?” Petey turned to her, surprised to find her blushing furiously. She cast him a guilty look, then lowered her gaze to her hands. “I-I don’t know what you’re t-talking about.” “Of course not,” the captain ground out. “I should’ve expected a two-faced English lady like you to deny the truth about our ‘friendship.’ Well, you may deny it to me, and you may even deny it to this sailor of yours.” He lowered his voice to a threatening hum. “But you’ll have a hell of a hard time denying it to yourself.

There is really only one question you ever need to direct at someone to work out whether or not they are a good person, and that is, with deliberate simplicity: Do you think you are a good person? And to this there is only one acceptable answer. People who are genuinely good, people who know about kindness, patience, forgiveness, compromise, apology and gentleness always, always answer: no. One cannot both be a good person and at the same time feel totally blameless and pure inside. Goodness is, one might say, the unique consequence of a keen awareness of one’s capacity to be bad: that is, to be thoughtless, cruel and self-righteous. The price of being genuinely good has to be a constant suspicion that one might be a monster – combined with a fundamental hesitation about labelling anyone else monstrous. Only properly bad people don’t lie awake at night worrying about their characters. It has generally never occurred to the most difficult or dangerous people on the planet that they might be awful. It is a grim paradox that the worst deeds that humans have ever been guilty of have been carried out by people with an easy conscience, people who felt they were definitely on the side of angels. The melancholy have advanced knowledge of their impurity, and are experts in their own sinfulness. They can’t forget how silly they have been at many moments and with what lack of thought they have treated others. This self-knowledge isn’t fun, but it keeps them very honest.

Flatterers: "He who knows how to flatter also knows how to slander." — Napoleon Flattery: Diplomats must have no delusions of grandeur, but they should know how to induce them in others. Flattery: "Flattery pleases very generally. In the first place, the flatterer may think what he says to be true; but, in the second place, whether he thinks so or not, he certainly thinks those whom he flatters of consequence enough to be flattered." — Samuel Johnson Flattery, influence through: "Praise other men whose deeds are like those of the person you are talking to; commend other actions which are based on the same policies as his. If there is someone else who is guilty of the same vice he is, be sure to gloss over it by showing that it really does no great harm; if there is someone else who has suffered the same failure he has, be sure to defend it by demonstrating that it is not a loss after all. If he prides himself on his physical prowess, do not antagonize him by mentioning the difficulties he has encountered in the past; if he consider himself an expert at making decisions, do not anger him by pointing out his past errors; if he pictures himself a sagacious planner, do not tax him with his failures. Make sure that there is nothing in your ideas as a whole that will vex your listener, and nothing about your words that will rub him the wrong way, and then you may exercise your powers of rhetoric to the fullest. This is the way to gain the confidence and intimacy of the person you are addressing and to make sure you are able to say all you have to say without incurring his suspicion." — Han Feizi, as translated by Burton Watson [誉异人与同行者，规异事与同计者。有与同污者，则必以大饰其无伤也；有与同败者，则必以明饰其无失也。彼自多其力，则毋以其难概之也；自勇其断，则无以其谪怒之；自智其计，则毋以其败穷之。大意无所拂悟，辞言无所系縻，然后极骋智辩焉，此道所得亲近不疑而得尽辞也。——《韩非子·说难》]

Those who have been swept within the criminal justice system know that the way the system actually works bears little resemblance to what happens on television or in the movies. Full-blow trials of guilt or innocence rarely occur; many people never even meet with an attorney; witnesses are routinely paid and coerced by the government; police regularly stop and search people for no reason whatsoever; penalties for many crimes are so severe that innocent people plead guilty, accepting plea bargains to avoid harsh mandatory sentences; and children, even as young as fourteen, are sent to adult prisons. Rules of law and procedure, such as 'guilt beyond a reasonable doubt' or 'probable cause' or 'reasonable suspicion,' can easily be found in court cases and law-school textbooks but are much harder to find in real life.

narrow his eyes. But his face changed in the subtlest of ways — it was as if his cheekbones had become more prominent, and his eyes turned cold. It was enough for her to know for sure that she would never want to be questioned by this man for a crime — whether she was guilty or innocent. It also made him more intriguing. As a result of her self-enforced eviction Leo wasn’t quite sure what to do with herself, until she remembered that the wine bar opened early to serve breakfast. Maybe she could set up her office there for an hour or so. She had calls to make and meetings to set up for next week. A few of her clients were going on family holidays this week, and she had a dreadful suspicion that on their return they might be in need of urgent appointments. Unhappy relationships and holidays were not often a good match. Ordering an almond croissant and the ubiquitous cappuccino, she settled down in the corner away from other customers so that she wouldn’t disturb them by speaking on the

The ones who are innocent help because they trust us. And the ones who aren’t so innocent pretend to trust us because they’re afraid of looking guilty.

Now it was every guilty breath sucked in after a sort-of-lie. It was the drop of the stomach after finding a body. It was the gnawing suspicion that you were leasable, that you were too much trouble, that you were better off dead. It was the shame of wanting something that you shouldn't; it was the ugly thrill of nearly being dead. It was all of those things, all at once.

As long as an officer has “reasonable suspicion” that the person has committed or might commit a crime, there can be a stop. And as long as an officer has “reasonable suspicion” that the person might have a weapon, there can be a frisk.

The purpose of the stop had obviously been to look for drugs, but the police had had no reasonable suspicion, let alone probable cause, to justify a stop for that kind of crime. They had stopped the car for a minor traffic violation patently as an excuse to search for drugs.

The actual motivation of the officers is irrelevant.18 As long as an officer has probable cause, or even reasonable suspicion, that a traffic law has been violated, he or she may stop the vehicle.

the Court has reaffirmed that the officers’ subjective motivation is irrelevant in evaluating whether a stop or an arrest is lawful under the Fourth Amendment. As long as the officer can articulate reasonable suspicion for making a stop, even if it had nothing to do with the real reason for the stop, he or she has not violated the Fourth Amendment.

he totality of the circumstances,” the officer “had reasonable suspicion to believe that respondent was engaged in illegal activity.

What had Wardlow done to create “reasonable suspicion”? He was in what the Court said was “an area known for heavy narcotics trafficking.”38 That is another way of saying, it was a predominantly Black neighborhood. And he walked the other direction after seeing police cars.

Schneckloth v. Bustamonte is important on many levels. First, it dramatically empowers police to be able to search. It obviates the need for police to meet all the requirements of the Fourth Amendment, such as the need for probable cause (or at least reasonable suspicion) and the need for a warrant. It is estimated that consent searches comprise over 90 percent of all warrantless searches.

There is a common humanity in all of us, and if you need something from somebody, you’d better understand that—it makes the job easier. Clarence might be guilty and we need to be aware because we are in the suspicion business, but he’s also a man who just lost someone who was very close to him.

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind…. --Third Part of King Henry VI, Act V, Scene VI, William Shakespeare

Without You Everything Is Hideous How are you? , sweetheart, here I am writing these letters and your thought does not leave me and here you are still the closest to me since that day, which did not end until now. I scatter my letters in front of your beautiful eyes to tell you that I am wrong and guilty ; Although I have not forgotten you for a moment, even while I am trying to convince myself that everything is finished from your point of view, but I make up for it and say well, this is enough for me to try to snatch her icy heart again, this heart that loved me with all sincerity that innocent childish heart that never hated One even over the one who is because of him has left me for a long time due to false suspicion I remember all your letters, so I read them from time to time How nice it was to call me a childish nickname - capturing like your cheeks a happy nickname. You didn’t know all my reasons, sweetie I indirectly told you about the biggest reason when I told you to read “So Forgive Me ”You are the most beautiful thing that has happened to me since I knew you. My beauty, today I want to tell you that you forgot something one day. You asked me: Have you loved before? So I told you : Yes I did it was a long time ago when I was a teenager; I never thought that I would love again after I was wounded by that deep wound, when I was left alone, the wolves of loneliness and separation scattered me, and no one comes to me to pull me from the bottom of the debris that happened in my heart, And to be honest, I was not afraid for myself as much as I feared for your tender heart; I don’t ever want to be the lover who leaves his lover, especially if it is you. My beautiful woman, I wanted to make sure that my heart never beats for anyone but you It’s not easy, believe me I admire you since we became close, since we started speaking in the innocent language of children, since you used to say to me you are late to respond, even if I was late for a few seconds since night became for us a second day we talk about it until dawn and more Since you were quarreling with others trying to make them understand my point of view. How delicious days were when you looked at me from a distance and smiled, and when I heard your laughter as much as I was jealous, my heart beat with joy All your conditions were beautiful even when you quarreled with me I am not here trying to tell you that I am innocent, I am not I hurt you many times but I swear it was not with intent They were rather fleeting and spontaneous things. I admit that I have hurt your pride and here I am now bearing the consequences of this matter, and I swear it is not an easy thing. But, my flower, when you told me that excuse to stay away from me for three months, it smashed me, how can someone take my moon from me? The one that shone my eyes and melted the ice around my heart after my heart became so attached to her that I became so addicted to her that when I talk to any girl I call her by your name. My little girl I lost my love previously, and I do not want to lose you, because I know that you are a twin of my soul, even if you deny this now, but in the depths of your heart you know the validity of this matter. I apologize for every moment that made you think with pain I just wanted to protect you from fleeting feelings or just those feelings that were attracted to you And I know you crave someone to love you just because you are beautiful I wanted to protect you from the feelings of a teenager And if it was a year or less late to reveal it You know that valuable things no matter how late they are, their value will be better, finer, sincere and thinner, and you deserve strong, sincere feelings that stem from the depths of the heart and from the depths of the soul feelings befitting you I see in you all the beauties in life And without you, everything is Hideous You have all my feelings, beautiful cheeks.

Someone or other must be to blame that I feel ill’ – this kind of conclusion is peculiar to all sick people, and in fact becomes more insistent, the more they remain in ignorance of the true reason, the phys- iological one, why they feel ill (this can, perhaps, be a disease of the nervus sympaticus, or lie in an excessive secretion of bile, or in a deficiency of potassium sulphate and phosphate in the blood, or in abdominal stricture interrupting the blood circulation, or in degeneration of the ovaries and such like). The sufferers, one and all, are frighteningly willing and inven- tive in their pretexts for painful emotions; they even enjoy being mis- trustful and dwelling on wrongs and imagined slights: they rummage through the bowels of their past and present for obscure, questionable stories that will allow them to wallow in tortured suspicion, and intoxi- cate themselves with their own poisonous wickedness – they rip open the oldest wounds and make themselves bleed to death from scars long-since healed, they make evil-doers out of friend, wife, child and anyone else near to them. ‘I suffer: someone or other must be guilty’ – and every sick sheep thinks the same. But his shepherd, the ascetic priest, says to him, ‘Quite right, my sheep! Somebody must be to blame: but you yourself are this somebody, you yourself alone are to blame for it, you yourself alone are to blame for yourself’ . . . That is bold enough, wrong enough: but at least one thing has been achieved by it, the direction of ressentiment is, as I said – changed.

Full-blown trials of guilt or innocence rarely occur; many people never even meet with an attorney; witnesses are routinely paid and coerced by the government; police regularly stop and search people for no reason whatsoever; penalties for many crimes are so severe that innocent people plead guilty, accepting plea bargains to avoid harsh mandatory sentences; and children, even as young as fourteen, are sent to adult prisons. Rules of law and procedure, such as “guilt beyond a reasonable doubt” or “probable cause” or “reasonable suspicion,” can easily be found in court cases and law-school textbooks but are much harder to find in real life.

I am hopeful that the PAC will examine these issues, as well as the processes and legal propriety of Pratyush Sinha’s khap panchayat carefully, particularly regarding its tainted chairmanship and tainted membership of Chairman ISRO Dr Radhakrishnan, who not only had silently approved the construction of GSAT 6A in the Space Commission, but also hobnobbed with Devas, even after the Space Commission’s decision to annul the deal. Cherry-picking the guilty only substantiates my suspicion that the Pratyush Sinha Committee had clear instructions from its appointers about who should be made the fall guys, and who should be let off. An examination of the Space Commission membership that approved GSAT 6 and GSAT 6A, with their present and past positions will give accurate information of those members who knew about the deal and sat like silent conspirators, committing the same offence of concealing facts from the Space Commission as Madhavan Nair. Why have they been exonerated?

The price of being genuinely good has to be a constant suspicion that one might be a monster – combined with a fundamental hesitation about labelling anyone else monstrous. A guilty conscience is the bedrock of virtue.

Cassandra always hid when she read, though she never quite knew why. It was as if she couldn’t shake the guilty suspicion that she was being lazy, that surrendering herself so completely to something so enjoyable must surely be wrong.

Those who have been swept within the criminal justice system know that the way the system actually works bears little resemblance to what happens on television or in movies. Full-blown trials of guilt or innocence rarely occur; many people never even meet with an attorney; witnesses are routinely paid and coerced by the government; police regularly stop and search people for no reason whatsoever; penalties for many crimes are so severe that innocent people plead guilty, accepting plea bargains to avoid harsh mandatory sentences; and children, even as young as fourteen, are sent to adult prisons. Rules of law and procedure, such as “guilt beyond a reasonable doubt” or “probable cause” or “reasonable suspicion,” can easily be found in court cases and law-school textbooks but are much harder to find in real life.

As Shakespeare said, suspicion always haunts the guilty mind

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind.—William Shakespeare

1. Try to make explicit the basis of any hunches and intuitions about whether or not someone is lying. By becoming more aware of how you interpret behavioral clues to deceit, you will learn to spot your mistakes and recognize when you don’t have much chance to make a correct judgment. 2. Remember that there are two dangers in detecting deceit: disbelieving-the-truth (judging a truthful person to be lying) and believing-a-lie (judging a liar to be truthful). There is no way to completely avoid both mistakes. Consider the consequences of risking either mistake. 3. The absence of a sign of deceit is not evidence of truth; some people don’t leak. The presence of a sign of deceit is not always evidence of lying; some people appear ill-at-ease or guilty even when they are truthful. You can decrease the Brokaw hazard, which is due to individual differences in expressive behavior, by basing your judgments on a change in the suspect’s behavior. 4. Search your mind for any preconceptions you may have about the suspect. Consider whether your preconceptions will bias your chance of making a correct judgment. Don’t try to judge whether or not someone is lying if you feel overcome by jealousy or in an emotional wildfire. Avoid the temptation to suspect lying because it explains otherwise inexplicable events. 5. Always consider the possibility that a sign of emotion is not a clue to deceit but a clue to how a truthful person feels about being suspected of lying. Discount the sign of an emotion as a clue to deceit if a truthful suspect might feel that emotion because of: the suspect’s personality; the nature of your past relationship with the suspect; or the suspect’s expectations. 6. Bear in mind that many clues to deceit are signs of more than one emotion, and that those that are must be discounted if one of those emotions could be felt if the suspect is truthful while another could be felt if the suspect is lying. 7. Consider whether or not the suspect knows he is under suspicion, and what the gains or losses in detecting deceit would be either way. 8. If you have knowledge that the suspect would also have only if he is lying, and you can afford to interrogate the suspect, construct a Guilty Knowledge Test. 9. Never reach a final conclusion about whether a suspect is lying or not based solely on your interpretation of behavioral clues to deceit. Behavioral clues to deceit should only serve to alert you to the need for further information and investigation. Behavioral clues, like the polygraph, can never provide absolute evidence. 10. Use the checklist provided in the appendix (table 4) to evaluate the lie, the liar, and you, the lie catcher, to estimate the likelihood of making errors or correctly judging truthfulness.

A shipowner was about to send to sea an emigrant ship. He knew that she was old, and not overwell built at the first; that she had seen many seas and climes, and often had needed repairs. Doubts had been suggested to him that possibly she was not seaworthy. These doubts preyed upon is mind, and made him unhappy; he thought that perhaps he ought to have her thoroughly overhauled and refitted, even though this should put him to great expense. Before the ship sailed, however, he succeeded in overcoming these melancholy reflections. He said to himself that she had gone safely through so many voyages and weathered so many storms, that it was idle to suppose that she would not come safely home from this trop also. He would put his trust in Providence, which could hardly fail to protect all these unhappy families that were leaving their fatherland to seek for better times elsewhere. He would dismiss from his mind all ungenerous suspicions about the honesty of builders and contractors that his vessel was thoroughly safe and seaworthy; he watched her departure with a light heart, and benevolent wished for the success of the exiles in their strange new home that was to be; and he got his insurance money when she went down in mid-ocean and told no tales. What shall we say of him? Surely this, that he was verily guilty of the death of those men. It is admitted that he did sincerely believe in the soundness of his ship; but the sincerity of his conviction can in no wise help him, because he had no right to believe on such evidence as was before him. He had acquired his belief not by honestly earning it in patient investigation, but by stifling his doubts. And although in the end he may have felt so sure about it that he could not think otherwise, yet inasmuch as he had knowingly and willingly worked himself into that frame of mind, he must be held responsible for it.