Criminal offense

“ And, further, that no person shall be held to answer for a criminal offense without due process of law, nor be put twice in jeopardy of punishment for the same offense, nor be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself. ”

“ Causes, in which money is claimed for damage or for debt, are called civil causes; those for the trial of persons charged with crime, or some misdemeanor, are called criminal causes. All crimes, strictly speaking, are misdemeanors. In common usage, however, the word misdemeanor denotes a smaller offense, such as is usually punishable by fine, or by imprisonment in a county jail, and not in a state prison. Causes, actions, and suits, are words of similar meaning in law language, being generally used to signify prosecutions at law, or lawsuits. The party that sues is called plaintiff ”

“ Such a rule is utterly without foundation in logic or reason from the simple fact that crime in every age has been committed with every circumstance of caution and concealment that criminal ingenuity could devise; usually under the cover of night, often with a mask, frequently by the aid of accomplices to give notice of the appearance of the officers of the law, and nearly always with subsequent attempts to wipe out evidences of the commission of the offense. ”

“ In speaking of the necessity of greater particularity of statement, the court said, (page 558:) 'It is an elementary principle of criminal pleading that where the definition of an offense, whether it be at common law or by statute, includes generic terms, it is not sufficient that the indictment shall charge the offense in the same generic terms as in the definition; but it must state the species,-it must descend to particulars. ”

“ His approach, like that taken by the Court, totally overlooks the significance of there being six entirely separate charges of robbery against six individuals.
This 'single frolic' concept is not a novel notion; it has been urged in various courts including this Court. [8] One of the theses underlying the 'single frolic' notion is that the criminal episode is 'indivisible.' The short answer to that is that to the victims, the criminal conduct is readily divisible and intensely personal; each offense is an offense against a person. ”

“ In fine, history and current practice are significant indicators of what we as a people regard as fundamentally fair and rational ways of defining criminal offenses, which are nevertheless always open to critical examination. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There can be no general rule based merely on the name or kind of crime committed which is going to tell us which offender is really the worst. A misdemeanor may be very much more heinous than a felony. The adulterator of drugs or the employer of illegal child labor may well be regarded as vastly more reprehensible than the tramp who steals part of the family wash. So far as that goes there are an [Pg 7] alarming multitude of acts and omissions not forbidden by statute or classed as crimes which are to all intents and purposes fully as criminal as those designated as such by law. ”

“ 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 principle that there is a presumption of innocence in favor of the accused is the undoubted law, axiomatic and elementary, and its enforcement lies at the foundation of the administration of our criminal law. ”

“ This is the point from which we start; each indictment is now a bill of pains and penalties, a special law naming the criminal and prescribing his punishment. A second step is accomplished, when the multiplicity of crimes compels the legislature to delegate its powers to particular Quæstiones or Commissions, each of which is deputed to investigate a particular accusation, and if it be proved, to punish the particular offender. ”

“ Any person who offends against the penal laws of the community in which he lives may be sent to prison; whether he be called an offender or a criminal will depend on consideration of points that are technical. Generally speaking, persons convicted of offences against the person or against property are classed as criminals, while those who have transgressed against public order—as in breaches of the peace, etc.—are classed as offenders. ”

“ We are generally informed that our penal systems exist for the purpose of repressing crime, and that punishment is thus inflicted upon the criminal in order that others may be deterred from following his example. ”

“ Next comes the “délit,” which includes all offences punished by imprisonment over a week and under five years. Then, finally, we arrive at the “crime,” the highest form of offence in French criminal law. It includes all offences subject to a more severe sentence than the punishment assigned to a délit. All cases are held to be crimes where death, life-imprisonment with or without hard labour, deportation out of the kingdom, detention or seclusion in a fortress or other expressly assigned place, are the punishments mentioned by the law. ”

“ The Government suggests seriousness of the crime as a test and says the statute is one by which it is 'sought to reach the confirmed criminal, whose criminality has been revealed in two serious penal offenses.' (Italics supplied.) But we cannot, and the Court does not, take seriousness as a test of turpitude. All offenses denounced by Congress, prosecuted by the Executive, and convicted by the courts, must be deemed in some degree 'serious' or law enforcement would be a frivolous enterprise. ”

“ The penal code and the code of criminal procedure that have replaced it attempt to ensure that criminals are not able to evade the penalties provided for in the law but, at the same time, there is a stated guarantee against the arrest, trial, or conviction of innocent persons. ”

“ When we speak of the repression of crime, we must first of all distinguish between that which is due to the general character of penal legislation, more or less severe, and that which is secured by the administration by the judges of the law as it is. ”

“ Criminal attempts constitute, as we have seen, the first of the exceptions to the rule that a person’s ulterior intent or motive is irrelevant in law. A second exception comprises all those cases in which a particular intent forms part of the definition of a criminal offence. Burglary, for example, consists in breaking and entering a dwelling-house by night with intent to commit a felony therein. ”

“ The criminal law which had its origin when violence was rife is admirably adapted to the prevention, prosecuting and punishment of crude crimes, such as arson, rape, robbery, burglary, mayhem, assault, homicide, and "common-law" larceny,—theft accompanied by a trespass. In old times everything was against the man charged with crime—at least that was the attitude of the court and jury. "Aha!" exclaims the judge as the evidence goes in. ”

“ As a Professor of Jurisprudence reminds us, "the object of the whole complicated system of checks and guards provided by English law, and secured by a long train of constitutional conflicts, has been to prevent an innocent man being even momentarily treated as a thief, a murderer, or other criminal, on the mere alleged or real suspicion of a policeman." ”

“ Our criminal code, artificial and indiscriminating as it is, is the growth of ages and is the result of the notion that society ought to take vengeance upon the criminal, at least that it ought to punish him, and that the judge, the interpreter of the criminal law, was not only the proper person to determine the guilt of the accused, by the aid of the jury, but was the sole person to judge of the amount of punishment he should receive for his crime. ”

“ A boy of thirteen is tried, say for picking the pocket of some subject of her Majesty, and the offence is about as clearly proved as an offence can be. He is called upon for his defence, and contents himself with a little declamation about the jurymen and his country—asserts that all the witnesses have committed perjury, and hints that the police force generally have entered into a conspiracy ‘again’ him. ”

“ Notwithstanding there is a difference in the adjudicated cases upon this subject, we think the better doctrine recognizes that, although the transaction may be in a sense continuous, the offenses are separate, and each complete in itself. This is the result of the authorities as stated in Mr. Bishop in his new work on Criminal Law, 8th ed.:
'If in the night a man breaks and enters a dwelling house to steal therein, and steals, he may be punished for the two offenses or one, at the election of the prosecuting power. ”

“ The characterization of felonies, which are defined by certain offense-related elements, as serious crimes regardless of the nature of the offender captures our intuitive sense that a crime is not made less serious by factors extrinsic to it, but only by circumstances surrounding the offense itself. ”

“ It might be supposed that communities thus familiarized with the punishment of crime by public authority would rapidly develop a criminal jurisprudence by the simple and direct process of adding from time to time new crimes, perhaps in the order of their supposed enormity, to their catalogue of offenses. ”

“ Even setting this crucial historical evidence aside, and proceeding as the Court does, by looking to dictionary definitions, chapter 73 of the Federal Criminal Code, state statutes, and the Model Penal Code, the same result emerges: Core obstruction of justice requires a pending investigation or proceeding. ”

“ The various punishments which are inflicted upon our law breakers are fines, imprisonment, flogging, and death.
Fines produce a very useful means of dealing with persons whose offences show a tendency to crime rather than to actual criminality. In many cases the self-respect of the offender has not been sacrificed, and while under arrest the sense of shame is deeply aroused. ”

“ But while deference is due state legislatures and courts in defining crimes, this deference has constitutional limits. In the case of a compound crime such as felony murder, in which one crime must be proven in order to prove the other, the underlying crime must, as a matter of law, be a lesser included offense of the greater. ”

“ The man who deliberately violates the law by doing that which he knows to be wrong is a real criminal, whether he be a house-breaker, an adulterator of drugs, the receiver of a fraudulent assignment or a trade-mark thief, an insurance "grafter," a bribe giver, or a butcher who charges the cook's commission against next Sunday's delivery. ”

“ There is [Pg 30] no reason why one should be a felon, another guilty of only a misdemeanor, while still another is guilty of nothing at all. The cause of crime is our general and widespread lack of respect for law, and this in turn is largely due to the unpunished, and often unpunishable, dishonesty which seems to permeate many phases of commercial activity. ”

“ The sifting of criminal charges against people is for the grand jury or for judges or magistrates and for them alone under our Constitution. In my view no other accusatory body can be used that withholds the rights of confrontation and cross-examination from those accused of federal crimes. ”

“ The Pleas of the Crown are murder, robbery, rape, and wilful fire-raising. Those who have been convicted of crime as defined by the section quoted would properly be called criminals, but it is obvious that the name is applied and is applicable to many who do not fall under the definition. In practice the treatment of prisoners who have been convicted of offences is the same as that of those who have been convicted of crimes, when the sentence is one of imprisonment. ”

“ Not only are the names and degrees of the crimes which a defendant may have committed of very little assistance in determining his real criminality, but the fact that he has committed them by no means signifies that he is morally any worse than some man who has committed no so-called crime at all. Many criminals, even those guilty of homicide, are as white as snow compared with others who have never transgressed the literal wording of a penal statute. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Every attempt to evade control or at concealment at locking up time will be punished. Violent attempts will be punished by the criminal court. Any [Pg 265] one who escapes from the establishment or from outside work will be punished with detention on his recapture and anyone taking his uniform when escaping will be prosecuted for theft.
(13) Whoever foments a conspiracy amongst the inmates will either be punished for breach of discipline or be handed over to the police. ”