Illegal activity

“ Indeed, the principle, as understood by me, goes further than this, since it not only gives to each of the states in the cases suggested the power to render possible an evasion of the police laws of all the other states, but it gives to each state the authority to compel the other states, through their courts, to give effect to illegal transactions done within their borders. ”

“ Rather the exclusionary rule has rested on the deterrent rationale-the hope that law enforcement officials would be deterred from unlawful searches and seizures if the illegally seized, albeit trustworthy, evidence was suppressed often enough and the courts persistently enough deprived them of any benefits they might have gained from their illegal conduct. ”

“ Anyone carrying a flask would be considered, in the eyes of this law, a bootlegger, a purveyor of illegal goods—in fact, a criminal even though no evidence had been produced to prove him121 so. In our anxiety to purify the nation, we have distorted old established laws, turned reasoning topsy-turvy, and once more made ourselves ridiculous—in the Empire State at least. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The people were further ordered to form combinations for the purpose of checking illegal acts, and were enjoined to send to the magistrates monthly reports as to the state of affairs in the district. If any one apprehended that by giving information of an evil act he might incur the vengeance of malefactors,—a fear which protected many law-breakers against exposure,—he was advised to communicate in writing with the authorities, who guaranteed his immunity from evil consequences. ”

“ Under the guise of a campaign for the suppression of radical activities, the office of the Attorney General, acting by its local agents throughout the country, and giving express instructions from Washington, has committed continual illegal acts. Wholesale arrests both of aliens and citizens have been made without warrant or any process of law; men and women have been jailed and held incomunicado without access of friends or counsel ”

“ 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. ”

“ Almost every other house, in portions of this locality, is a dram-shop, where the vilest liquors are sold. Policy-offices, doing business in direct violation of law, are in every street and block, their work of plunder and demoralization going on with open doors and under the very eyes of the police. Every one of them is known to these officers. But arrest is useless. A hidden and malign influence, more potent than justice, has power to protect the traffic and hold the guilty offenders harmless. Conviction is rarely, if ever, reached. ”

“ Such a statutory scheme would have the added advantage of providing some remedy to the completely innocent persons who are sometimes the victims of illegal police conduct-something that the suppression doctrine, of course, can never accomplish. ”

“ The Attorney General himself appeared before one of the committees and pointed out that crime had become highly organized, with strong political connections and illegal methods of procedure; that gangsters and desperate criminals had equipped themselves with every modern convenience and invention; that modern gangsters have no regard for life, property, decency or anything else ”

“ The thing is on the statute-books--nay, in the very Constitution itself --and to offend against it, they say, is as much a crime as to commit larceny, arson or murder. But they may repeat this doctrine until Doomsday, and make little impression upon persons who exercise their common sense. The law that makes larceny, arson or murder a crime merely registers, and emphasizes, and makes effective through the power of the Government, the dictates of the moral sense of practically all mankind ”

“ It cannot be gainsaid that such was within the competency of the Legislature; the mere statement of the purpose carries justification of the act. * * * If society cannot impose such taint of illegality upon the confederation of convicted criminals, who have no lawful occupation, under circumstances denoting * * * the pursuit of criminal objectives, it is helpless against one of the most menacing forms of evil activity. ”

“ It may not be denied that a state which has lawfully prohibited the enforcement of a particular character of transaction, and made the same criminal, has an interest in seeing that its laws are enforced and will be subjected to the gravest humiliation if it be compelled to give effect to acts done within its borders which are in violation of its valid police or criminal laws. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Yet under such conditions as these we detain hundreds of thousands of persons:—The vagrant, the drunkard, the witness, the runaway boy, the first offender, the hardened criminal, the man awaiting trial, the convicted law-breaker. What can we expect but that they will degenerate in body, mind and morals? Even where work is provided, as is done in some larger jails and workhouses, it [Pg 22] is under the old contract system, which we should like to see abolished. In some States misdemeanants are employed on the public highways. ”

“ The genius, the nature, and the spirit of our State governments amount to a prohibition of such acts of legislation, and the general principles of law and reason forbid them. The legislature may enjoin, permit, forbid, and punish; they may declare new crimes, and establish rules of conduct for all its citizens in future cases; they may command what is right and prohibit what is wrong, but they cannot change innocence into guilt, or punish innocence as a crime, or violate the rights of an antecedent lawful private contract, or the right of private property. ”

“ 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? ”

“ The current incidence of serious violations of the law represents not only an appalling waste of the potentially happy and useful lives of those who engage in such conduct, but also an overhanging, dangerous threat to those unidentified and innocent people who will be the victims of crime today and tomorrow. ”

“ Assuming for present purposes the constitutionality of a statute prohibiting non-violent activity that tends to provoke public alarm or disturbance, such a tendency, as a crucial element of a criminal offense, must be established by evidence disclosed in the record to sustain a conviction. ”

“ So, also, the law, which is intended to prevent crime, in its general spread among the community, by regulations, police organization, and otherwise, which are adapted for the protection of the lives and property of citizens, for the dispersion of mobs, for the arrest of thieves and assassins, for the watch which is kept over the community, as well as over this class of people, is more efficient than punishment of crimes after they have been committed. ”

“ The abhorrence of society to the use of involuntary confessions does not turn alone on their inherent untrustworthiness. It also turns on the deep-rooted feeling that the police must obey the law while enforcing the law; that in the end life and liberty can be as much endangered from illegal methods used to convict those thought to be criminals as from the actual criminals themselves. ”

“ Acts innocent in themselves—such, for instance, as buying goods in a foreign market and bringing them for use to this—may be made a legal crime by statute law, while other acts which are monstrous violations of natural human rights may be and are ignored by the code, and are perpetrated with impunity in the highest grades of civilized society. ”

“ It is easy while sitting on the piazza with your cigar to recognize the rights of your fellow-men, you may assert most vigorously the right of the citizen to immunity from arrest without legal cause, but if you saw a seedy character sneaking down a side street at three o'clock in the morning, his pockets bulging with jewelry and silver! Would you have the policeman on post insist on the fact that a burglary had been committed being established beyond peradventure before arresting the suspect, who in the meantime would undoubtedly escape? ”

“ A law the violation of which in the class of instances in which the Government does seriously undertake to enforce it--bootlegging, smuggling and moonshining--is condoned, aided and abetted by hundreds of thousands of our best citizens? ”

“ I think that under our system, it is time enough for the law to lay hold of the citizen when he acts illegally, or in some rare circumstances when his thoughts are given illegal utterance. I think we must let his mind alone. ”

“ In the extreme cases in which expeditions are unavoidable, they are analogous to legal penalties for civil crime—evils in themselves inevitable from deficiencies of preventive police, but redeemed by their deterrent effects. ”

“ We may, however, forfeit them by some offense or crime. If, for example, a man is fined for breaking a law, he loses his right to the money he is obliged to pay. By stealing, he forfeits his liberty, and may be justly imprisoned. By committing murder, he forfeits his right to life, and may be hanged. ”

“ Second, if while you are searching the house you proceed without a warrant to search the other building or property you are not guilty of offense unless two things concur: First, you must have been without any reasonable cause to search the other buildings or property, and, second, you must have acted maliciously. Notice the language. It is worth your while. You are legislating for 110,000,000 people and you are putting this authority into the hands of irresponsible men, proceeding without bond, armed with big guns, and sent out among the people. ”

“ To expatiate upon the principles of penal law is foreign to the purpose of this work, but thus much is evident to the plainest apprehension, that the objects most to be desired in it are the restriction of the number of capital inflictions, as far as is consistent with the security of society; and the employment of every method that can be devised for rendering the guilty persons serviceable to the public, and just to themselves ”

“ But the power is not merely to define and punish piracies, but felonies, and offences against the law of nations; and on this account, the power to define, as well as to punish, is peculiarly appropriate. It has been remarked, that felony is a term of loose signification, even in the common law; and of various import in the statute law of England. [9] Mr. Justice Blackstone says, that felony, in the general acceptation of the English law, comprises every species of crime, which occasioned at common law the forfeiture of lands and goods. ”

“ If man or woman break the law, especially that of Rasm, or immemorial custom, the offence is kept from the guardians of society—policemen and magistrates, the worst robbers in the land. If certain 'commandments' be violated, he, she, or it, is carefully tied and trussed up, gagged, and thrown into the Great River. ”

“ Upon the mind of a man intensely convinced that the law is an outrage, how much impression can be produced by the mere fact that it was passed by Congress and the Legislatures, when the real attitude of the members of those bodies is such as it is seen to be in their private conduct? How much of a moral sanction would be given to a law against larceny if a large proportion of the men who enacted the law were themselves receivers of stolen goods ? ”

“ Regrettable as it may seem, no police force, however large, could arrest all the violators of every law, and no system of courts could dispose of the multitude of offenders. We do the best we can and make an example of a few, hoping thus to persuade the others to be good. If every citizen undertook to exercise his right of arresting every individual whom he saw committing petty crime, the business of the community would come to a standstill and the magistrates' courts would be hopelessly congested with great hordes of prisoners, irate witnesses, and gratuitous policemen. ”

“ If a member of the secret society commit a crime he is to be protected or hidden away; if he be taken by the police, the society is [Pg 142] bound to secure him the ablest legal assistance, furnish as many false witnesses as may be required, and if he be convicted, pay his fine, or do all in its power to alleviate the discomforts of a prison. ”

“ No just interest of the Government in the effective and rigorous enforcement of the criminal law will be hampered by recognizing that anyone legitimately on premises where a search occurs may challenge its legality by way of a motion to suppress, when its fruits are proposed to be used against him. ”