Criminal penalty

“ Most important, a major goal of the criminal law — to deter others by punishing the convicted criminal — would not be substantially served where the penalty is so seldom invoked that it ceases to be the credible threat essential to influence the conduct of others. ”

“ The issue we deal with is inherent in the criminal law and its administration because guilty pleas are not constitutionally forbidden, because the criminal law characteristically extends to judge or jury a range of choice in setting the sentence in individual cases, and because both the State and the defendant often find it advantageous to preclude the possibility of the maximum penalty authorized by law. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To that end, the determination whether a given civil sanction constitutes punishment in the relevant sense requires a particularized assessment of the penalty imposed and the purposes that the penalty may fairly be said to serve. Simply put, a civil as well as a criminal sanction constitutes punishment when the sanction as applied in the individual case serves the goals of punishment. ”

“ And we mean that the penalty for things criminal shall be prison sentences that actually punish the real offender, instead of money fines that hurt nobody but the people, who must pay them in the end. ”

“ The aim may be not to revenge a crime, but to prevent it; to deter the offender from repeating the deed, and others from the beginning thereof. In all modern legislation the vindictive spirit is slowly yielding to the design of preventing crime. The method is to inflict certain uniform and specific penalties for each offence, proportionate to the damage which the criminal has done; to make the punishment so certain, so severe, or so infamous, that the offender shall forbear for the future, and innocent men be deterred from crime. But have we a right to punish a man for the example's sake? ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is, therefore, to some extent true, that punishment serves as an example, namely, to convince all of the infallible execution of the law. But the original intention of punishment was solely to deter the criminal from the crime. Now, since this end could not be attained, he having committed a crime, his punishment has another aim in view, namely, to deter other citizens from committing the same offense. The execution of the penal law is, therefore, a public act. Each citizen who has heard of an offense, must also learn that it has been punished. ”

“ The Government's whole argument rests on the stark premise that Congress has left to the district attorney or the Attorney General the power to say whether the judge and jury must punish identical conduct as a felony or as a misdemeanor.
A basic principle of our criminal law is that the Government only prosecutes people for crimes under statutes passed by Congress which fairly and clearly define the conduct made criminal and the punishment which can be administered. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Aggravating circumstances which, in themselves, constitute a crime specially punishable by law, or which are included by the law in defining a crime and prescribing the penalty therefor, shall not be taken into account for the purpose of increasing the penalty. ”

“ Section 19 of the Criminal Code condemns as a criminal offense any conspiracy to injure a citizen in the exercise 'of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States'. Section 20 makes it a penal offense for anyone who, 'acting under color of any law' 'willfully subjects, or causes to be subjected, any inhabitant of any State * * * to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured or protected by the Constitution and laws of the United States'. ”

“ The law, therefore, makes it a positive condition that before any one, whether he be citizen or officer, may arrest another for a felony not committed in his presence the felony must in fact have been committed. Thus the right to apprehend a suspected wrong-doer is invoked at the peril of him who seeks to exercise it. If no felony has been committed the arrest is illegal. ”

“ The second consequence of the law of criminal saturation, one of great theoretical importance, is that the penalties hitherto regarded, save for a few platonic declarations, as the best remedies for crime, are less effectual than they are supposed to be. For crimes and offences increase and diminish by a combination of other causes, which are far from being identical with the punishments lightly written out by legislators and awarded by judges. ”

“ The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) defines “aggravated felony” by enumerating a long list of offenses. §1101 (a) (43) . Some are federal criminal offenses, but others are undefined generic offenses, such as “burglary,” §1101 (a) (43) (G) , and “obstruction of justice,” §1101 (a) (43) (S) , which is relevant here.
To assess whether someone’s conviction is covered by a generic offense, our precedents dictate that courts use the “categorical approach.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ They are simple and clear. Rule 7 (a) provides that an offense 'which may' be punished by death must begin by indictment, while a noncapital offense may be prosecuted by information, if indictment is waived. Rule 7 (b) repeats that an offense 'which may' receive a sentence for a term of years 'may be' begun by information 'if the defendant, after he has been advised of the nature of the charge and of his rights, waivers in open court prosecution by indictment.' In filing the information under the Kidnaping Act, the Government forecloses itself from seeking the death penalty. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ IN DEFENSE OF THE KENNISTONS BY DANIEL WEBSTER Gentlemen of the Jury,—It is true that the offense charged in the indictment in this case is not capital; but perhaps this can hardly be considered as favorable to the defendants. To those who are guilty, and without hope of escape, no doubt the lightness of the penalty of transgression gives consolation. But if the defendants are innocent, it is more natural for them to be thinking upon what they have lost by that alteration of the law which has left highway robbery no longer capital, than what the guilty might gain by it. ”

“ I am concerned solely with the imposition, without trial by jury, of fixed nontrivial punishments after compliance with the court's order has been secured.
Thus limited, criminal contempts are not essentially different from other 'crimes' or 'criminal prosecutions.' In each case punishment is imposed for a past violation of a mandate of a coordinate organ of government: [38] criminal contempt involves punishment for violation of an order of a court; 'crime' involves punishment for violation of a statute enacted by a legislature. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Prompt surrender and acknowledgment of an offence, before it is otherwise discovered, entitles the offender, with some exceptions, to a full and free pardon; as also does restitution of stolen property to its owner by a repentant thief; while a criminal guilty of two or more offences can be punished only to the extent of the principal charge. Neither are the near relatives, nor even the servants, of a guilty man, punishable for concealing his crime and assisting him to escape. ”

“ Article XI. All authorities, whether political, military, or municipal, who have not acted in accordance with the provisions of the present law against those who are suspected of or recognized as being guilty of the offenses with which it deals, shall be liable to a fine of from fifty to one thousand piasters; and when the omission implies acquaintance with the guilty, the delinquent shall be brought before the court martial, who shall judge him and inflict a penalty in proportion to the offense. ”

“ 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 older statute had imposed a penalty for certain offences,-namely, obstructing a claimant in arresting a fugitive from labor, rescuing the fugitive after his arrest, or harboring and concealing him with knowledge that the was a fugitive; and the statute had enacted that the claimant might recover the penalty for his own benefit, and also reserved to him a right of action in damages for the actual injuries he might have sustained, be they more or less. ”

“ If any one convict in a court of law a stranger or a slave of a theft of public property, let the court determine what punishment he shall suffer, or what penalty he shall pay, bearing in mind that he is probably not incurable. But the citizen who has been brought up as our citizens will have been, if he be found guilty of robbing his country by fraud or violence, whether he be caught in the act or not, shall be punished with death ”

“ This term 'misdemeanor' has been generally understood to mean the lower grade of criminal offense as distinguished from a felony. It is true that the term has often been used in the statutes of the United States without strict regard to its common-law meaning, and sometimes to describe offenses of a high grade, which have been declared in the statutes to be misdemeanors. In the statutes of the states, the term has generally been defined as embracing crimes not punishable by death or imprisonment in the penitentiary. ”