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1963 Wash. U. L. Q. 279 (1963)
The Criminal Prosecution: Sporting Event or Quest for Truth

handle is hein.journals/walq1963 and id is 285 raw text is: WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY LAW QUARTERLY Volume 1963 June, 1963 Number 3 THE CRIMINAL PROSECUTION: SPORTING EVENT OR QUEST FOR TRUTH? WILLIAM J. BRENNAN, JR.* The Tyrrell Williams Memorial Lectureship was established in the School of Law of Washington University by alumni of the school in 1949, to honor the memory of a well-loved alumnus and faculty member whose connection with and service to the school extended over the period 1898-1947. This fifteenth annual lecture was delivered March 13, 1963. Over the last fifteen years many distinguished judges, law teachers and lawyers have joined you in this annual tribute to the memory of an eminent teacher and scholar of the law. You will therefore appreciate my delight in accepting the signal honor of your invitation. The papers already delivered from this podium have indeed set a high standard. And it is significant, I think, that those papers have a common thread, if different themes. All make the point, by one formulation or an- other, that the quest for better justice is a ceaseless quest, that the single constant for our profession is the need for continuous examina- tion and reexamination of our premises as to what law should do to achieve better justice. This has encouraged me to choose the subject upon which I shall speak this morning. Should we extend to criminal prosecutions the civil pre-trial discovery techniques which force both sides of a civil law suit to put all cards on the table before trial, and tend to reduce the chance that surprise or maneuver, rather than truth, may determine the outcome of the trial? Or, as Glanville Williams asked recently, shall we continue to regard the criminal trial as in the nature of a game or sporting contest and not a serious inquiry aiming to distinguish between guilt and innocence?, * Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States. 1. Williams, Advance Notice of the Defence, 1959 CRIM. L. REV. (Eng.) 548, 554.