Condemnation

“ Judge not, therefore, and ye shall not be judged, but if you persist in passing condemnatory sentences on your, fellowman, be sure you will make such glaring mistakes and work such mischief, that God's condemnation will come heavy upon you. ”

“ The possibility of assigning, beforehand, the number of accused and condemned which should occur in a country, is calculated to lead to serious reflections, since it involves the fate of several thousands of human beings, who are impelled, as it were, by an irresistible necessity, to the bar of the tribunal, and towards the sentences of condemnation that there await them. ”

“ As condemnation would be followed by a fearful death, and the accused were, for the most part, miserable beings whose destruction can have been an object to no one, the judges can have had no sinister motives in convicting, and had, on the contrary, the most urgent reasons for exercising their power with the utmost caution and deliberation. ”

“ Those who made the perpetrators ignorant through oppression, and savage by misrule. The responsibilities of a certain order through many centuries were called to judgment during the brief period before us; and the sentence of condemnation not only went forth on the four winds to the farthest corners of the globe, but shall be repeated down to those remote ages when it shall be forgotten on earth, though recorded in heaven, that man ever shed the blood of man. ”

“ Look at the records of your own government, and you will find that hundreds have been executed for the very crime which has called forth the sentence of condemnation against this woman, and drawn down upon her the arm of vengeance. ”

“ It is wonderful how forward some have been to look upon it as a kind of presumption and ingratitude, and rebellion, and cruelty, and I know not what besides, not to allege only, nor to own, but to suffer any one so much as to imagine, that an old-established law could in any respect be a fit object of condemnation. ”

“ Is it fit that for crimes, which merely abridge the comforts of those around them, that men should be condemned to death? But what do we say comforts, what comforts are often abridged? sometimes for stealing what none would feel the want of, what many would not know they had lost, is condemnation passed. ”

“ The answer to all this is, that the condemnation alluded to passed sub silentio, without bringing the point distinctly to our view, and is, therefore, no precedent; and that, as to public opinion, or that of the officers of government, however respectable they may be, it can furnish no good grouds for enforcing so heavy a penalty, unless, on investigation, it shall appear to have been correctly formed. ”

“ That these offences have their precedents in men whose memory the world delights to honor does not remove their turpitude, but it is a fact which should modify our condemnation in a particular case; unless, indeed, we are to deliver our judgments on a principle of compensation—making up for our indulgence in one direction by our severity in another. ”

“ The person accused exposes himself by flight to condemnation, whether the crime has been proved or not. Some jurisconsults, indeed, have wisely held that the contumacious person ought not to be condemned unless the crime were clearly established ”

“ When the truth is ascertained, if there be wrongs as charged, the language of judicial condemnation should be clear and emphatic, and a punishment inflicted such as the wrongs deserve; and if no wrong has been done the conduct of counsel will be cleared from suspicion. ”

“ In the awful decision of death, more especially, we should be careful not to inflict a penalty which we cannot repay back to the sufferer if the condemnation should afterwards prove to have been erroneous. ”

“ It carries self-condemnation on its face. The legislature have the general power to define and prescribe the punishment for crimes. They may determine what acts shall be deemed crimes. And may they not determine what words shall be deemed criminal? ”

“ All these propositions are in sharp contrast with Art. 37 of the new Italian penal code, which has given no other guarantee to the victims of offences than the superfluous, or ironical, or immoral declaration that ``penal condemnation does not prejudice the right of the injured person to restitution and indemnification''—as though there were any doubt of the fact. ”

“ If the interest of the custom-house officers, before condemnation, is conditional, and subject to the power of remission, the judgment of condemnation can have no other effect than to fix and determine that interest as against the claimant. ”

“ But let it be remembered that clemency is the virtue of [191] the maker, not of the executor, of the laws; that it should be conspicuous in the code of laws rather than in particular judgments; that the showing to men, that crimes may be pardoned and that punishment is not their necessary consequence, encourages the hope of impunity, and creates the belief that sentences of condemnation, which might be remitted and are not, are rather violent exhibitions of force than emanations of justice. ”

“ Thirdly, condemnation, or justification, is not absolute and complete, equalizing all on each side of a given line, but is a thing of degrees, not exactly the same in any two individuals, or in the same person at all times. ”

“ A law which condemns, without hearing, all the individuals of a class to so harsh a measure as the present because some or even many merit condemnation, is lacking in the first principles of due process.... ”

“ The judgment for the condemnation was conclusive upon both particulars. A right to condemn, as held by the supreme court of the state, is to be determined before the appointment of commissioners to estimate the amount of compensation to be made. ”

“ Our domestic events—domestic in their origin though the scene be laid abroad—it would be more agreeable to pass in silence, as it is difficult to find the proper expression with which to characterize them, and impracticable to make use of those expressions when found. The most consoling observation to be made is that of unanimous condemnation on all hands, where there are no private ends to gain. ”

“ The supineness and apathy of the judges are the subjects of general condemnation, and their want of discernment and discrimination renders it frequently necessary to reverse or suspend the execution of their judgments. ”

“ In the matter of a person named Clemency, [22] the Court of Cassation say:
'If the effect of letters of pardon is limited to the remission of the whole or a part of the penalties pronounced against one or more individuals; if they leave the offence still subsisting, as well as the culpability of the pardoned, and even declare the justice of the condemnation, it is otherwise with respect to a full and complete amnesty, which carries with it the extinction of the offences of which it is the object ”

“ The legal principle that the State ought to indemnify material and moral injury inflicted by its functionaries, through malice or negligence, on a citizen who has done nothing to subject himself to prosecution or condemnation, cannot be seriously contested. But the whole difficulty is reduced to deciding in what cases the right to indemnification ought to be

recognised, and then to providing a fund out of which the State can discharge this duty. ”

“ It is stated in the court records that the chief cause of the individual's condemnation was the indignation produced by his absurd pretensions. He was not proved guilty. He stated that he had been born a prince and this lost him the respect of the court. My complaint of the proceedings is that the sentence was for so brief a term. To imprison a man for a season is only to make him more set in his convictions. ”

“ For to accuse, requires less eloquence, such is man’s nature, than to excuse; and condemnation, than absolution more resembles justice. ”

“ The whole procedure is primarily not intended as a measure against the author, although pecuniary loss may ensue, but to protect the faithful. A condemnation is rather a warning to the would-be reader, than a punishment inflicted upon the author. ”

“ For it is most certaine that in times of condemnation the Judges doome or sentence is sometimes perceived to be more sharpen mercilesse and forward, and at other times more tractable, facile, and enclined to shadow or excuse an offence, according as he is well or ill pleased in mind. ”

“ Else, if men are involved in condemnation because of one offence, on the ground that all the offences which are condemned were committed in imitation of that one offence; there is the same reason why men should also be regarded as withdrawn from one offence unto justification, inasmuch as all the offences which are remitted to the justified were committed in imitation of that one offence. ”

“ A Philosopher, included in the same sentence of condemnation with several guilty persons among whom he had been apprehended, sent the following lines, composed suddenly in the moment when he was going to death, to a certain King whom had ignorantly condemned him. ”

“ If the condemned person is an interesting character, or if there is any sort of excuse upon which an appeal can be based, there are always a great number of people who have no special knowledge of the case, and who, perhaps, have not even read the newspaper reports, who are ready to get up petitions, collect signatures, and stir up a lot of sympathy for one who too often deserves nothing but execration and contempt. Such agitations lead to much misrepresentation of facts, and often to sweeping condemnations of the judge and jury. ”

“ How many condemnations have I seen more criminal than the crimes
themselves? ”

“ On Calvin's theological position, see Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 1:409, note.
(c) But the Scriptures teach that men as sinners, and not men irrespective of their sins, are the objects of God's saving grace in Christ (John 15:9; Rom. 11:5, 7; Eph. 1:4-6; 1 Pet. 1:2) . Condemnation, moreover, is an act, not of sovereignty, but of justice, and is grounded in the guilt of the condemned (Rom. 2:6-11; 2 Thess. 1:5-10) . The true order of the decrees is therefore as follows: 1. the decree to create; 2. the decree to permit the Fall; 3. ”

“ We may censure silently; we condemn ordinarily by open and formal utterance. Condemn is more final than blame or censure; a condemned criminal has had his trial; a condemned building can not stand; a condemned ship can not sail. A person is convicted when his guilt is made clearly manifest to others; in somewhat archaic use, a person is said to be convicted when guilt is brought clearly home to his own conscience (convict in this sense being allied with convince, which see under PERSUADE) ; in legal usage one is said to be convicted only by the verdict of a jury. ”

“ If we were, in imagination, to place ourselves in the chamber of the condemned, or by the fire-side of the mere spectator of an execution, we shall find the heart of the first generally in a morbid state, whilst the spectator commiserates the fate of the condemned more than he learns to reprobate the crime for which the guilty one suffered.{221}
Punishment, when strained beyond what is necessary becomes revenge; punishment, also, should never exceed, but rather be milder than, public opinion. ”

“ Io, I have not only broken God’s law, but the laws of my country. Justice demands a victim. My cross is to let the world know my guilt, publicly to confess my crime and accept its penalty, even should it be a death of shame. ”

“ But, sir, would the establishment of their guilt prove his innocence? At most, it would only prove that they too ought to be punished. Wherever we behold the respondent sitting in judgment, there do we behold violence and injustice. Before him the counsel are always contumacious. The most accomplished advocates of the different States, whose demeanor to his brethren is uniformly conciliating and temperate, are to him, and him only, obstinate, perverse, rude, and irritating. Contumacy has been found to exist only where he presided. ”

“ Where the words are not in themselves actionable, because the offence imputed involves neither moral turpitude nor subjects the offender to an infamous punishment, special damage must be alleged and proved in order to maintain the action. ”

“ One may, but without passion, bear testimony against the accused. If he is convicted, justice condemns him. But the judge, in describing the crime and pronouncing sentence, never forgets the duty due to the creature of God on whom the punishment is about to fall. Here I see nothing but fury and jealous rage. They are devoured by their thirst for blood, and equity is not the basis of their judgments. ”

“ Whatever constitutional safeguards are required in a summary contempt proceeding, whether it be for criminal punishment, or for the imposition of coercive sanction, we must be ever mindful of the danger of permitting punishment by contempt to be imposed for conduct which is identical with an offense defined and made punishable by statute. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And yet, if after all this precaution it should manifestly appear that a person hath been unjustly condemned, either by bringing to light some latent circumstance, or by discovering that the witnesses against him are certainly perjured, or by any other means of displaying the party's innocence, the gates of mercy are still left open, and upon a proper and decent application, either to the judge before whom the trial was had, or to the Privy Council, the condemned person will be sure of obtaining a pardon, of preserving his life, and of regaining both his liberty and reputation. ”