where in 1967, at the age of 28, he became the youngest full professor of law in its history. He has held the Felix Frankfurter professorship there since 1993.
Dershowitz is known for his involvement in several high-profile legal cases and as a commentator on the Arab–Israeli conflict
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The courtroom oath—to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth—is applicable only to witnesses...because the American justice system is built on a foundation of not telling the whole entire truth.
All sides in a trial want to hide at least some of the truth.
The defendant wants to hide the truth because he's generally guilty. The defense attorney's job is to make sure the jury does not arrive at that truth.
The prosecution...wants to make sure the process by which the evidence was obtained is not truthfully presented, because, as often as not, that process will raise questions.
The judge also has a truth he wants to hide: He often hasn’t been completely candid in describing the facts or the law.
I have no doubt that if an actual ticking bomb situation were to arise, our law enforcement authorities would torture. The real debate is whether such torture should take place outside of our legal system or within it. The answer to this seems clear: If we are to have torture, it should be authorized by the law.
The threat of mutually assured destruction worked for the United States during the Cold War because it had proved its willingness to drop nuclear bombs on enemy cities at the end of World War II. It might work less well for Israel, because the Israeli Air Force has never deliberately targeted a large civilian population center, and its leaders have said its morality would not permit it do so.