Case hardening

“ Drunkenness during an act of criminal violence is regarded as a mitigating circumstance, and the fines and compensation imposed would be of smaller amount than in a case of similar crime deliberately committed. ”

“ If these questions can be satisfactorily answered, then society is better enabled to arm herself against his invasion, in fact having successfully diagnosed his case she may be led on to discover the means whereby criminals may be reduced to their irreducible minimum, both as regards number and as regards their capacity for doing harm. ”

“ In the case of all ordinary breaches of the law, the mischief of the offence does, for the most part, terminate with the immediate injury sustained by the individual against whom it is levelled. The man who plunders the property, or lifts his hand against the life of his neighbour, does by his guilty act inflict, in that particular instance, and to that intent, a loss or injury on the sufferer or his surviving friends ”

“ However much in a particular case insistence upon such rules may appear as a technicality that inures to the benefit of a guilty person, the history of the criminal law proves that tolerance of shortcut methods in law enforcement impairs its enduring effectiveness. ”

“ Accordingly, “prolong” adds a temporal dimension to the harm to the individual, namely, that the harm must be one that is endured over some period of time. Put another way, the acts giving rise to the harm must cause some lasting, though not necessarily permanent, damage. For example, the mental strain experienced by an individual during a length and intense interrogation such as one that state or local police might conduct upon a criminal suspect, would not violate Section 2340 (2) . ”

“ To construe § 24-301 (d) as requiring a court, without further proceedings, automatically to commit a defendant who, as in the present case, has competently and advisedly not tendered a defense of insanity to the crime charged and has not been found incompetent at the time of commitment is out of harmony with the awareness that Congress has otherwise shown for safeguarding those suspected of mental incapacity against improvident confinement. ”

“ Whether the rule is modified where the defense relied upon is insanity, disease of the mind, or delusion, it is not necessary now to inquire.' In respect to that case we observe that upon principle the rule as to the burden of proof in criminal cases cannot be materially different where the defense is insanity, disease of the mind, or delusion, from the rule obtaining when the defense is an original defect and want of capacity. ”

“ Damages are designed not only as a satisfaction to the injured person, but likewise as punishment to the guilty, to deter from any such proceeding for the future and as a proof of the detestation of the jury to the action itself. ”

“ Where accused has pleaded insanity as a defense to a crime, and the jury has found that the defendant was, in fact, insane at the time the crime was committed, it is just and reasonable in the Committee's opinion that the insanity, once established, should be presumed to continue and that the accused should automatically be confined for treatment until it can be shown that he has recovered.' S.Rep. ”

“ If in such cases, or in any case of a civil nature, it is the policy of the law to visit upon the offender such exemplary damages as will operate as punishment, and teach the lesson of caution to prevent a repetition of criminality, yet we do not see how such damages can be allowed, where the principal is prosecuted for the tortious act of his servant, unless there is proof in the cause to implicate the principal and make him particeps criminis of his agent's act. ”

“ Such confinement is a favorite method of intimidation and blackmail in the case of the innocent, and, in the case of the guilty, amounts to punishment without the cost and labor involved in proving the guilt and securing sentence by legal process. ”

“ Reparation of damage suffered by the victims of crime may be regarded from three different points of view:— (1) As an obligation of the criminal to the injured party; (2) as an alternative for imprisonment for slight offences committed by occasional criminals; and (3) as a social function of the State on behalf of the injured person, but also in the indirect and not less important interest of social defence. ”

“ Such an action is as much and as flagrant a crime or offence against the community as an act of robbery or murder, which, though primarily an injury to the individual, is primarily avenged as an injury to the State. ”

“ ¶But the fullest recognition of the horror of the crime and the most complete lack of sympathy with the criminal can not in the least diminish our horror at the way in which it has become customary to avenge these crimes, and 138at the consequences that are already proceeding therefrom.
¶It is, of course, inevitable that where vengeance is taken by a mob it should frequently light on innocent people; and the wrong done in such a case to the individual is one for which there is no remedy. ”

“ It makes one conviction the basis for commencing another proceeding under another Act to determine whether a person constitutes a threat of bodily harm to the public, or is an habitual offender and mentally ill. ”

“ Few complainants have ever before appeared in a police court, and are filled with repugnance at the rough treatment of prisoners and the suffering which they observe upon every side. After they have seen the prisoner emerge from the cells, pale, hollow-eyed, bedraggled, and have beheld the tears of his wife and children as they crowd around the husband and father, they begin to realize the horrible consequences of a criminal prosecution and to regret that they ever took the steps which have brought the wrong-doer where he is. ”

“ XXX. The second way, by which delays in criminal prosecutions afford occasions for delinquents to escape with impunity, is not so palpable, nor so obvious as the first, but in general is more successful, and oftener takes effect. I will explain what I mean. When a notorious crime is newly committed, all minds are sharpened against the offender, and filled with horror at the outrage. Even the most mild call out for punishment, and the injured person, invokes heaven and earth for it. The public in general seem filled with resentment, and breathe nothing but severity. ”

“ In each case, the factual scenario will vary greatly as to the nature of the attack, the motive for the attack, the spontaneity of, or the degree of planning for, the attack, whether there was a real and specific intention to cause injury, and other individual features which may bear on the culpability of the offender or offenders.
In the present case, the victim was targeted because of his employment as a prosecutor against a person who was effectively an inspiration and guiding light for the attack. ”

“ As for the very frequent occurrence of relapse in special crimes, such as assaults on officials and resistance to authority, which rarely come before the assize courts—though even there they tend to support the higher numbers in the tribunals—these are offences which may also be committed by criminals of every kind, and which, moreover, depend in some measure on the social factor of police organisation, and frequently on the psycho-pathological state of particular individuals. ”

“ This is a run-of-the-mill negligence case, presenting no new question of law or departure from established legal principles. The only question is whether there was enough evidence to take the case to the jury. ”

“ At the present day it is a very common practice to pick out a case of undoubted hardship here and there, and to assume that such a case is typical of the whole criminal population. It is, of course, well to point out such cases, and to emphasise them as much as possible till we reach such a pitch of excellence in our administration of the law as will render all unmerited hardship exceedingly rare. ”

“ I think that a general law promising impunity to an accomplice who exposes a crime would be preferable to a special declaration in a particular case, because in this way the mutual fear which each accomplice would have of his own risk would tend to prevent their association; the tribunal would not make criminals audacious by showing that their aid was called for in a particular case. Such a law, however, should accompany impunity with the banishment of the informer.... ”

“ This account of the considerations which have regulated the punishment of crimes explains the severity with which 'criminal negligence' is in some cases punished, and that severity is justified by the account given of the true principle of criminal law, the principle, viz., that crime should be punished according to the importance of the right which it violates, and to the degree of terror which in a well-organised society needs to be associated with the crime in order to the protection of the right. ”

“ The old, the feeble and infirm, therefore, in civil and criminal proceedings, were exposed to mortal challenge from the antagonist who was destitute of legal proofs, and thus condemned to renounce their fairest claims and possessions, to sustain the danger of an unequal conflict, or to trust the doubtful aid of a mercenary champion. ”

“ But in such cases the law pries into the mind only to determine the nature and culpability of an act, as a mitigating or aggravating circumstance, and I know of no situation in which a citizen may incur civil or criminal liability or disability because a court infers an evil mental state where no act at all has occurred. ”

“ I say NO—that if there be blood guiltiness let the offender be punished in accordance with our criminal code; if there be none then is he blameless, and to deprive a person of his property because of a harmless act is a crime. ”

“ Friend justly laid great stress, and which never can be entirely got rid of. It is this—that if by an error of justice an innocent person is put to death, the mistake can never be corrected; all compensation, all reparation for the wrong is impossible. This would be indeed a serious objection if these miserable mistakes—among the most tragical occurrences in the whole round of human affairs—could not be made extremely rare. The argument is invincible where the mode of criminal procedure is dangerous to the innocent, or where the Courts of Justice are not trusted. ”

“ This court, on full consideration of the conflicting authorities upon that subject, has repeatedly and uniformly held that such a provision, not containing the words 'sane or insane,' does not include a self-killing by an insane person, whether his unsoundness of mind is such as to prevent him from understanding the physical nature and consequences of his act, or only such as to prevent him, while foreseeing and premeditating its physical consequences, from understanding its moral nature and aspect. ”

“ The fear of one who sees how his haste and breed can be called punishable criminal negligence, was in his face. The things that had been human, sprawled stiff before him, accusing him. But the worst was the presence of those grim, silent men, who might add him forcibly to the death-list. ”

“ Cases of notorious criminals-like cases of small, miserable ones-are apt to make bad law. When guilt permeates a record, even judges sometimes relax and let the police take shortcuts not sanctioned by constitutional procedures. ”

“ Accordingly he goes back to his haunts and his vices, impatient of restraint, and is soon in the hands of the police again. Clearly there is need of some modification in the law or its administration to permit of such persons being dealt with.
Insane offenders may be divided into two classes: those whose wrongdoing is the result of their insanity; and those who have been sound enough to begin with, but who have become insane, just as they have contracted physical diseases, as a result of vicious indulgence and its treatment. ”

“ I may mention for your information, that by the law of England, if exemption be claimed from a criminal charge on the plea of insanity, there is a greater necessity that mental aberration should be proved, than in civil transactions in which it is sought to annul a contract or to take away the management of a man’s affairs. In criminal matters it must be proved that the insanity is existing at the time of the crime, and that it is connected with the crime committed. ”

“ Malice, then, is an element in the offense, and discriminates it from the other crime of felonious homicide which I have mentioned, to wit, manslaughter; that is, malice, express or implied, discriminates murder from the offense of manslaughter.' 'Express malice exists when one, by deliberate premeditation and design, formed in advance, to kill or to do bodily harm, the premeditation and design being implied from external circumstances capable of proof, such as lying in wait, antecedent threats, and concerted schemes against a victim. ”

“ It must arrive at this conclusion—that every act of gross and unusual atrocity would carry its defence along with it, that every act of peculiar horror would have within itself a certain defence, for the barbarity of the deed would be considered as a proof that the mind which directed it was not in a state of sufficient security to judge whether the action was right or wrong; and if the mind possessed the power of forming that judgment, the prisoner was criminally accountable for the act. ”