Criminal responsibility

“ Juries have for centuries made the basic decisions between guilt and innocence and between criminal responsibility and legal insanity upon the basis of the facts, as revealed by all the evidence, and the law, as explained by instructions detailing the legal distinctions, the placement and weight of the burden of proof, the effect of presumptions, the meaning of intent, etc. ”

“ 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." ”

“ Now, we come to guaranties of the right of the people to protection against any trial, except the same be conducted in accordance with the guaranties of the Constitution. These guaranties are for all persons, young or old, rich or poor. You know sometimes the innocent are charged with grave crimes. A crime is committed in the darkness of the night. The criminal has fled. The first duty of the officers of the government—the servants of the people—is to find the criminal so that he may be punished for his wrongdoing. ”

“ THE CRIMINAL LAW.—A crime is a wrong which the State recognizes as injurious to the public welfare, and punishes in a criminal action in its own name. There are certain leading principles of the American system of criminal law which must be kept in mind. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In this connection, one of our country's distinguished jurists has pointed out: "The quality of a nation's civilization can be largely measured by the methods it uses in the enforcement of its criminal law." ”

“ Again, in some kinds of injury, it becomes your duty for the sake of the community to aid in bringing the criminal to justice. To bring the discipline of the righteous law upon the criminal, is not revenge: to shield him from its stroke is not love. ”

“ CRIMINAL LAW. By criminal, or penal, law is now understood the law as to the definition, trial and punishment of crimes, i.e. of acts or omissions forbidden by law which affect injuriously public rights, or constitute a breach of duties due to the whole community. The sovereign is taken to be the person injured by the crime, as he represents the whole community, and prosecutions are in his name. ”

“ In view of these facts, while the deliberate violator of law should doubtless be punished, it is even more important that the causes of crime should be removed, and that the criminal should, in as many cases as possible, be restored to a useful and an honest manner of life. ”

“ When a crime is committed, all we should be concerned with, in our own interests, is the application of the best possible means to minimize the results of that crime, to ensure that society shall run the least possible risk of a repetition of the crime, and the offender the least possible risk of remaining a criminal. ”

“ The State pays an officer to sift, probe, collect and array the evidences of crime, with which the criminal is stoned to death; does it likewise commission and compensate an equally painstaking, lynx-eyed official whose sole duty is to hunt and proclaim proofs of the innocence of the accused? The great body of the commonwealth is committed in revengeful zeal to prosecution; upon whom devolves the doubly sacred and imperative duty of defence? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And all others, whether they are designed to counteract the causes of crime, or to prevent actions, harmless in themselves, but often leading to criminal offences, are wholly beyond the State's sphere of action. ”

“ For too long, the victims of crime have been the forgotten persons of our criminal justice system. Rarely do we give victims the help they need or the attention they deserve. Yet the protection of our citizens-to guard them from becoming victims-is the primary purpose of our penal laws. Thus, each new victim personally represents an instance in which our system has failed to prevent crime. ”

“ By this and many other ways we shall help those charged with criminal offences, who, on a most careful enquiry, might reasonably be supposed to be innocent, but who, through want of means, are unable to obtain the legal assistance, and produce the evidence necessary for an efficient defence. ”

“ Nor should we relax for a moment vigorous enforcement of the criminal law until society, by its advanced civilized nature, will beget an atmosphere and environment in which crime will shrink to relative insignificance. ”

“ Now all prevention of crime must be directed to its causes. But these causes, which are so infinitely varied, might be generally expressed perhaps as the feeling, not sufficiently resisted by reason, by the disproportion between the inclinations of the agent and the means in his power for gratifying them. ”

“ Society could not adequately be protected in those days by the primitive forerunners of our police, and so, when by chance any criminal was captured—and the capturing of them generally was a chance affair—Justice usually made a terrible example of them, by way of warning. ”

“ It is alleged, that over and above the deterring from crimes, which is effected by this, in common with the other methods of punishing, there is the additional advantage, of obliging the criminal to repair by his labour the injury which he has done to the community. ”

“ If further evidence or illustration of these truths is desired, it can be abundantly gathered from the sketch which it is now proposed to give of some of the steps by which societies, in their efforts to control the avenger and regulate avengement, were slowly and at first unconsciously led toward the cardinal doctrine of criminal jurisprudence, that it is the function of government to protect by suitable penalties its citizens in person and property from the violence and fraud of one another. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The safety of society, which is the only object of the criminal law, requires only that those acts which are understood by mankind at large to be intrinsically criminal, should he punished as crimes. The remaining few (if there are any) may safely be left to go unpunished. ”

“ The principle of the law always implying injury, wherever the object or effect is the exposure of the accused to criminal punishment or to degradation in society. These guardian provisions of the law, designed, as we have said, for the security and peace of persons in the ordinary walks of private life, appear in some respects to be extended still farther in relation to persons invested with official trusts. ”

“ The statute law, no doubt, prevents many persons from committing crime, but our method of administering it certainly does not lessen the criminal class, and it does not adequately protect society. Is it not time we tried, radically, a scientific, a disciplinary, a really humanitarian method? ”

“ Recognizing the widespread impact of crime on our Nation, my Administration has worked hard during the past 6 years to strengthen our criminal justice system, to reduce the incidence of crime, and to champion the rights of crime victims. ”

“ And what has society done to protect itself against this aggressor? True, there are criminal codes, courts of law, and that surprising survival of the unfittest, trial by jury. Vast edifices have been built as prisons and reformatories, and philanthropic persons have formed societies for the instruction of the criminal and to care for him when his prison gates are opened. But, in spite of it all, the criminal becomes more numerous. He breeds criminals; the taint is in the blood, and there is no royal touch can expel it. ”

“ The modes by which the criminal laws serve the interest in general security are many. First, the murderer who has taken the life of another is removed from the streets, deprived of his liberty, and thereby prevented from repeating his offense. ”

“ 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. ”

“ These observations regard principally more heinous offences; but if the effect of the criminal code be found to be, that it operates more for the punishment than the prevention of crime, what would be the state of society, if the civil law was our great guide in transactions between man and man. ”

“ This does well enough for the purpose of illustrating the relative proportion of crimes to torts or wrongful acts in general, and, if a tiny dot be placed in the centre of the bull's-eye to represent those crimes which are actually punished, one gets an excellent idea of how infinitely small a number of these serve to keep the whole social fabric in order and sustain the majesty of the law. ”

“ The reason for such an initiative, beyond avoidance of jurisdictional conflicts, are the effective administration of penal justice, the interests of the victim and the reintegration of the offender into society. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service, in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled, in any criminal case, to be a witness against himself; nor be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. ”

“ In developing the causes which have produced that want of security, which it is believed prevails in no other civilised country in so great a degree as in England, it will be necessary to examine how far the System of Criminal Jurisprudence has been, hitherto, applicable to the prevention of crimes. ”

“ And society's awareness of the heavy personal strain which a criminal trial represents for the individual defendant is manifested in the willingness to limit the Government to a single criminal proceeding to vindicate its very vital interest in enforcement of criminal laws. ”

“ Practical men declare that ``the prohibitive penal law ought to be regarded as the first and most important of preventive laws.'' The prfets in their circulars, being concerned about the increase of crime, put forward the most vigilant and severe repression as a sovereign remedy. ”

“ In this connection, Lombroso has drawn a clear distinction between two varieties of occasional criminals: the ``pseudo-criminals,'' or normal human beings who commit involuntary offences, or offences which do not spring from perversity, and do not hurt society, though they are punishable by law, and ``criminaloids,'' who commit ordinary offences, but differ from true criminals for the reasons already given. ”

“ Within the domain of private law the division which calls for primary recognition is that between civil and criminal law. Civil law is that which is concerned with the enforcement of rights, while criminal law is concerned with the punishment of wrongs. We have examined and rejected the opinion that crimes are essentially offences against the state or the community at large, while civil wrongs are committed against private persons. ”

“ That these causes do to a great extent defeat the preventive effect of our penal laws, is proved by the tale of our criminal statistics, which reveal the fact that most of our crime is committed by those who [100] have once been punished, and that of general crime about 77 per cent. is committed with impunity. But if so large a proportion of crimes pass unpunished altogether, it is evident that society depends much less for its general security upon its punishments than is commonly supposed. ”

“ Henceforth we must seek, through the study of

facts, a better direction for penal legislation as a function of society, so that, by the observation of psychological and sociological laws, it may tend, not to a violent and always tardy reaction against crime already evolved, but to the elimination or diversion of its natural factors. ”