Administrative penalty

“ Where a party refuses to accept a decision on an administrative penalty and applies for administrative reconsideration or brings an administrative lawsuit, enforcement of the administrative penalty shall not be suspended, except as otherwise prescribed by law. ”

“ Where a violation of law is suspected of constituting a crime, the administrative organ handling it shall transfer the case to a judicial organ in a timely manner for investigation of criminal liability in accordance with law. Where criminal liability does not need to be investigated or it can be exempted in accordance with law, but an administrative penalty shall be imposed, the judicial organ shall transfer the case to the relevant administrative organ in a timely manner. ”

“ In all cases of penalty or punishment, it is contended, enforcement must depend upon the exertion of judicial power, either by civil or criminal process, since the distinction between judicial and administrative functions cannot be preserved consistently with the recognition of an administrative power to enforce a penalty without resort to judicial authority. ”

“ In the case of failure to apprehend perpetrators of any illegal numbers game, any law enforcer shall suffer an administrative penalty of suspension or dismissal, as the case may be, to be imposed by the appropriate authority. ”

“ The administrative fine shall not be imposed more than once for the same violation of law by a party. Where an illegal act violates several legal provisions, with each of them imposing a fine on such act, the provision that imposes the heaviest fine shall apply. ”

“ Township people's governments or their sub-district offices that undertake the power of imposing administrative penalties shall enhance their law enforcement capacity, and enforce administrative penalties within the prescribed scope and in accordance with legal procedures. ”

“ Where administrative penalties for violation of law have been provided for in laws and specific provisions need to be formulated in administrative regulations, such provisions must be formulated within the scope of the acts subject to administrative penalties and within the types and range of such penalties as prescribed in laws. ”

“ For those actually facing administrative charges, if after preliminary inquiry into the same, the head of department, office or agency is convinced that the evidence of guilt against the respondent or respondents is strong, he shall dismiss or consider them resigned or otherwise separated from the service, or impose the proper penalty prescribed for the offense. ”

“ It maintains, that, if a state shall impose a fine or penalty on any person employed in the execution of any law of the United States, it may levy that fine or penalty by a ministerial officer, without the sanction even of its own courts; and that the individual, though he perceives the approaching danger, can obtain no protection from the judicial department of the government. ”

“ If Congress so provides, violations of valid administrative regulations may be punished as crimes. [79] But the penalties must be provided in the statute itself; additional punishment cannot be imposed by administrative action. [80] In an early case, the Court held that a section prescribing penalties for any violation of a statute did not warrant a prosecution for wilful disobedience of regulations authorized by, and lawfully issued pursuant to, the act. ”

“ In my opinion, when Congress prescribes a maximum penalty for criminal violation of a statute, that penalty fixes the maximum which can be imposed whether the conviction is in a criminal proceeding as such for its violation or is for contempt for violating an order of court to observe it temporarily. ”

“ I say that any law which places such discretionary power in the hands of an executive officer who may be bribed or frightened, or who may have some personal injury to avenge, defeats the true end of justice. The court should fix the penalty absolutely. They say here, also, that no man is ever flogged a second time. ”

“ Congress having declared the acts in question to constitute a misdemeanor, and having provided that an action for a penalty may be prosecuted, we think there is nothing in the terms of the statute which will cut down the right of the government to prosecute by indictment if it shall choose to resort to that method of seeking to punish an alleged offender against the statute. ”

“ Now, when a crime, not condemned in ethics or humanity, and which the positive enactments of the law have made highly penal, yet contains within itself circumstances that appeal very strongly to whatever authority or magistrate has rightful control of the subject for a special exemption, and special remission, and special concession from the penalty of the law, where and upon what principles does a wise and just, a humane and benignant Government, dispose of that question? ”

“ Provided, That all persons may elect to sue for the penalties aforesaid, or to proceed under their rights at common law and by State statutes; and having so elected to proceed in the one mode or the other, their right to proceed in the other jurisdiction shall be barred: But this provision shall not apply to criminal proceedings, either under this act or the criminal law of any State: and provided further, That a judgment for the penalty in favor of the party aggrieved, or a judgment upon an indictment, shall be a bar to either prosecution respectively. ”

“ The answer in all such cases should be that the law attaches the proper penalties to its violation, and appoints the ministers by whom those penalties are to be enforced; and whenever they can act, whoever usurps their authority and attempts to punish supposed offenders in any other mode than that provided by the law, is himself a criminal. ”

“ Enforcement of this law should result in the elimination of misrepresentations of quantity and assure the purchaser of the quantity received. Another law gives the weights and measures officials police powers in connection with their work, and this will assist them very materially in many cases in bringing offenders of the law to justice. The penalty section has been strengthened and the procedure to be followed in the arrest and trial of offenders has been defined with great particularity. ”

“ I am not aware that any other civil administrative officer has assumed, in any country in which the common law prevails, the power to inflict upon a citizen severe punishment for an infamous crime. Possibly the court would hold that Congress could not, in view of article 3 of the Constitution, confer upon the Postmaster General, as a mere incident in the administration of his department, authority to issue an order which could operate only as a punishment. ”

“ Therefore, in assessing a punishment selected by a democratically elected legislature against the constitutional measure, we presume its validity. We may not require the legislature to select the least severe penalty possible so long as the penalty selected is not cruelly inhumane or disproportionate to the crime involved. And a heavy burden rests on those who would attack the judgment of the representatives of the people. ”

“ For the purposes of extraterritorial jurisdiction, it may well be that actions by a common informer, called, as Blackstone says, "popular actions,' because they are given to the people in general,' to recover a penalty imposed by statute for an offense against the law, and which may be barred by a pardon granted before action brought, may stand on the same ground as suits brought for such a penalty in the name of the state or of its officers, because they are equally brought to enforce the criminal law of the state. ”

“ In our view that case does not reach the situation where a legislative judgment as to the seriousness of the crime is imbedded in the statute in the form of an express authorization to impose a heavy penalty for the crime in question. Cheff involved criminal contempt, an offense applied to a wide range of conduct including conduct not so serious as to require jury trial absent a long sentence. In addition criminal contempt is unique in that legislative bodied frequently authorize punishment without stating the extent of the penalty which can be imposed. ”

“ Where the commission of a Federal offense is accompanied by an offense committed against the laws of the state, it is no doubt competent to so measure the punishment for the Federal offense as to make it equal to the punishment prescribed by the state for the crime committed against the state in the act of violating the Federal law. ”

“ In denouncing unlawful search by federal officers as a misdemeanor, Congress provided that it should not apply to one 'arresting or attempting to arrest any person committing or attempting to commit an offense in the presence of such officer, agent or employee, or who has committed, or who is suspected on reasonable grounds of having committed, a felony.' [12] Thus the legislative sources, while yielding some common provisions, also contain many inconsistencies. No act of Congress lays down a general federal rule for arrest without warrant for federal offenses. ”

“ It is almost certain, that, in the benignant spirit in which the institutions both of the State and federal systems are administered, an offender who should have suffered the penalties denounced by the one would not be subjected a second time to punishment by the other for acts essentially the same, unless indeed this might occur in instances of peculiar enormity, or where the public safety demanded extraordinary rigor. ”

“ The community whose laws have been outraged, justly demands the prompt and certain imposition of the penalty. If this can be imposed in such a way as at once to express the due disapprobation of the act, and a desire that the offender may be restored (on his reformation) to his forfeited place in society, a double advantage is gained.
As more enlightened methods of dealing with the criminally-disposed prevail, we have a right to look for a more efficient and well-balanced administration of penal law, and as a consequence, a sensible diminution in the number of crimes and criminals. ”

“ Where appropriate, agencies should consider administrative or civil enforcement of strict liability regulatory offenses, rather than criminal enforcement of such offenses; and (c) Criminal prosecution based on regulatory offenses is most appropriate for those persons who know what is prohibited or required by the regulation and choose not to comply, thereby causing or risking substantial public harm. Criminal prosecutions based on regulatory offenses should focus on matters where a putative defendant had actual or constructive knowledge that conduct was prohibited. ”

“ If in any instance there could be such legislation authorizing a criminal prosecution for disregarding a prohibition, that legislation should define the offence and declare the punishment, and not invade the independent action of the different departments of the State governments within their appropriate spheres. Legislation by Congress can neither be necessary nor appropriate which would subject to criminal prosecution State officers for the performance of duties prescribed by State laws, not having for their object the forcible subversion of the government. ”

“ When the circumstances, indeed, of two criminals guilty of offences alike in both the above respects are very greatly and obviously different, so different as to make the operation of the same penalty upon them very conspicuously different, then the penalty may be varied without interfering with its terrifying effect on the public mind. ”

“ The phrase 'every person' is manifestly broader than the enumeration made in the first portion of the statute. In other words, the unambiguous letter of the law is that every president, director, agent, etc., who commits the designated offenses, shall suffer the penalties provided, and that every person who aids or abets such officer, etc. The argument is that no one but an officer or an agent can be punished as an aider and abettor, and hence that every person who aids and abets, not being an officer, shall go unwhipped of justice. ”

“ It also would breed confusion among legislators who seek to structure the mechanisms of proper law enforcement within constitutional commands. In approaching the sometimes difficult question whether an enactment constitutes what must be deemed a punishment, we have recognized that a number of objective factors bear on the in uiry. Ibid. In the case before us, I agree with the Court that the controlling circumstance is whether the civil penalty imposed in the second proceeding bears any rational relation to the damages suffered by the Government. ”

“ Sec. 11 of the present Act makes it a crime to do specified acts, either by way of omission or commission, in violation of the Act or the rules or regulations issued under it. Thus it is a felony for a person to 'fail or neglect to perform any duty required of him under or in the execution of this Act, or rules or regulations made pursuant to this Act.' Sec. 11 is therefore a law of the United States which imposes criminal sanctions for disobedience of the selective service regulations. ”

“ When an agency takes an administrative enforcement action, engages in adjudication, or otherwise makes a determination that has legal consequence for a person, it may apply only standards of conduct that have been publicly stated in a manner that would not cause unfair surprise. An agency must avoid unfair surprise not only when it imposes penalties but also whenever it adjudges past conduct to have violated the law. ”

“ It declares, that nothing herein contained shall be construed to affect the right or claim of any person, to that part of any fine, penalty, or forfeiture, to which he may be entitled, when a prosecution has been commenced, or information has been given, before the passing of this act, or any other act relative to the mitigation or remission of such fines, penalties, or forfeitures; thereby clearly showing, that before such power to remit was given, the right of the custom-house officers attached upon the commencement of the prosecution, and could not be devested ”