Intervention (law)

“ Why is a man not responsible for the consequences of an act innocent in its direct and obvious effects, when those consequences would not have followed but for the intervention of a series of extraordinary, although natural, events? The reason is, that, if the intervening events are of such a kind that no foresight could have been expected to look out for them, the defendant is not to blame for having failed to do so. ”

“ The essential condition of social [Pg 86] development is enforcement, where necessary, of peace and order by adequate means. The criminal law corresponds to one part of this process. The whole social system includes machinery for prevention, for reformation and for education, as well as for punishment; and it is only when taken in its relation to other parts of the system, that we can give the full justification. ”

“ That all these specialised and preventive Authorities be empowered and required to enforce, by counsel and warning, by the sustained pressure of public opinion, and where needed by process of law, the obligation of all able-bodied persons to maintain themselves and their families in due health and efficiency. ”

“ There seems to be also some uncertainty in the minds of men in relation to the precise light in which the penalties of violated law are to be regarded by civil governments, and the spirit in which they are to be administered—they being apparently, as prescribed and employed by most governments, in some respects, and to some extent, retributive and vindictive, and in other respects remedial and curative. ”

“ The acts of an individual may be hurtful to others, or wanting in due consideration for their welfare, without going the length of violating their constituted rights. The offender may then be justly punished by opinion, though not by law. As soon as any189 part of a person’s conduct affects prejudicially the interests of others, society has jurisdiction over it, and the question whether the general welfare will or will not be promoted by interfering with it, becomes an open one. ”

“ Thus in community life the penalties of the law stand in the background as matters of no personal interest to law-abiding citizens. Yet the existence of those penalties and of the means for administering them are essential elements of community organization, and they must be intelligently understood by the officers responsible for community welfare. In this respect the leader has the same responsibility, and it is necessary to discuss frankly how he shall use this power of punishment, in order that he may meet this responsibility successfully. ”

“ In view of the general declarations of the Legislature and the specific findings of the Court obviously we cannot say as matter of law that the grounds do not exist, and if they exist they justify the result. We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. ”

“ I can find no authority for the broad claim that the 'right of a common-law remedy' extends to any and all means other than proceedings in rem which may be employed to enforce rights or redress injuries, including remedies in pais as well as proceedings in court, those conferred by statute as well as those existing at common law. ”

“ If it be such an exercise of power 'as the settled maxims of law permit and sanction, and under such safeguards for the protection of individual rights as those maxims prescribe for the classes to which the one in question belongs,' it is due process of law. ”

“ No doubt, by aid of an elaborate machinery of administration and a powerful body of police, Government can, to a certain extent, guide, or at any rate restrain, the conduct of its subjects. Even in this respect its powers are very limited, and a law which does not command the consent of the body of the people must soon be repealed or become inoperative. ”

“ It will be deemed to have been necessary for the common safety, because the person to whom the law has intrusted authority to decide upon and make it has duly exercised that authority.' Id. 100, 109, 110. ”

“ But behind and above these general principles which the law recognizes as ordinarily prevailing, there lies the legislative power, which, in the absence of organic restraint, may, for the general welfare of society, impose obligations and responsibilities otherwise nonexistent. ”

“ But where a specific duly is assigned by law, and individual rights depend on the performance of that duty, it seems equally clear that the individual who considers himself injured has a right to resort to the laws of his country for a remedy. ”

“ The reform movement has brought into prominence many public-spirited lawyers, who, either as attorney-generals or as district attorneys, have sought vigorously to enforce the law and punish its violators. ”

“ 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? ”

“ Where a state organ or a staff member thereof abuses power, neglects duty or engages in malpractices for personal gain in the legal aid work, a sanction shall be imposed in accordance with the law on the directly responsible person in charge and other directly responsible persons. ”

“ Whether most modern legislatures intend practically all or the great majority of their laws that are not declarations of natural law or provisions essential to public welfare to be purely penal or only disjunctively preceptive, is a disputed question. ”

“ Each person who hears another one cry for help is lawfully bound by the state-compact to hasten to his assistance. For all individuals have promised to all individuals to protect them; and the cry for help is the announcement that a danger exists, which the representative of the protecting power, the government, can not immediately remove. Hence, the cry for help confers upon each individual again not only the right but also the obligation to render immediate protection. If it can be proved that a citizen heard the cry for help and did not hurry to assistance, he is liable to punishment; ”

“ The only such qualifications which Congress has yet seen fit to enact are those effected by §§ 3 and 4 of the Act, modifying or abolishing the common-law defenses of contributory negligence and assumption of risk. ”

“ The state is within its constitutional power when it limits the sphere of self-help. It may protect an established possession against disturbance by anything except process of law. It may attach such consequences to the disturbance as it sees fit, short of cruel and unusual punishment. ”

“ When it becomes consummated, the law defines the duty and the right, compels one party to perform the thing contracted for, and gives the other a right to enforce the performance by the remedies then in force. ”

“ It throws the arm of the law about the more helpless, weighs and judges legal and social punishments, enforces a standard of humanity in private life, and intervenes actively between man and woman, parent and child, teacher and pupil, master and servant, officer and private, physician and patient, policeman and offender, warden and convict, employer and employé, railway and patron. ”

“ It prohibits every thing which is unjust or contra bonos mores. The object of all law is to repress vice and to promote the general welfare of society; and it does not give its assistance to a person to enforce a demand, originating in his breach or violation of its principles and enactments. Contracts in violation of statutes are void; and they are so whether the consideration to be performed or the act to be done be a violation of the statute. ”

“ For each one must know beforehand by what law he will be punished; otherwise, the punishment would involve an injustice; and the intent of the law, to deter men from committing offenses, can be achieved only by publishing the law. It is also clear, that the state must expressly provide by law what shall be held to constitute criminal neglect, and hence must specify the care which each citizen is required to observe in particular cases. ”

“ Instead, therefore, of promoting a practice so evidently detrimental to society, let us oppose it with the most vigorous efforts; let us begin our opposition by rejecting this bill, and then consider whether the execution of the former law shall be—enforced, or whether another more efficacious can be formed. ”

“ They can only excommunicate them from their society, and withdraw from them their fellowship.
11 We believe that men should appeal to the civil law for redress of all wrongs and grievances, where personal abuse is inflicted or the right of property or character infringed, where such laws exist as will protect the same; but we believe that all men are justified in defending themselves, their friends, and property, and the government, from the unlawful assaults and encroachments of all persons in times of exigency, where immediate appeal cannot be made to the laws, and relief afforded. ”

“ The law is in administration of a policy which, while it confers a privilege, is concerned to preserve it from abuse, and therefore has appointed officers to determine the conditions of it, and speedily determine them, and on practical considerations, not to subject them to litigious controversies, and disputable, if not finical, distinctions. ”

“ The whole future will of each individual is concentrated into the one moment when he declares his willingness to participate in the commonwealth; and this extending the present will so as to embrace the whole future, changes the expressed common will into LAW. In so far as the common will determines how far the rights of each person shall extend, the law is called Civil Law; and in so far as it determines the punishment which shall follow a violation of the law, it is called Penal or Criminal Law. ”

“ We have assumed so great a responsibility in necessary regulation that we unconsciously have assumed the responsibility for maintained service; therefore the lawful power for the enforcement of decisions is necessary to sustain the majesty of government and to administer to the public welfare. ”

“ The same considerations which have been urged to show that an act alone, by itself, does not and ought not to impose either civil or criminal liability, apply, at least frequently, to a series of acts, or to conduct, although the series shows a further co-ordination and a further intent. ”

“ The powers that impose the obligatory sanction are Law and Society, or the community acting through the Government by public judicial acts, and apart from the Government by the unofficial expressions of disapprobation and the exclusion from social good offices". ”

“ People's courts, people's procuratorates, and public security organs shall, within their respective functions and duties, ensure that the parties obtain legal aid in accordance with the law, and provide convenience for legal aid workers to carry out their work. ”

“ All law is directed to conditions of things manifest to the senses. And whether it brings those conditions to pass immediately by the use of force, as when it protects a house from a mob by soldiers, or appropriates private property to public use, or hangs a man in pursuance of a judicial sentence, or whether it brings them about mediately through men's fears, its object is equally an external result. ”

“ And thus much for these extrajudicial remedies, as well for real as personal injuries, which are furnished by the law, where the parties are so peculiarly circumstanced, as not to be able to apply for redress in the usual and ordinary methods to the courts of public justice. ”

“ Policy, it might be said, forbids going behind their judgment, but actual evil motives coupled with the absence of grounds withdraw this protection, because policy, although it does not require them to take the risk of being right, does require that they should judge honestly on the merits. ”

“ The judge, perhaps on petition from the community to which the criminal or dissolute man belongs, should decide on the necessity of the state's caring for him. Such care would involve life in a state institution, but a minimum use of force or restraint. ”

“ This Society protects itself under the shield of that Government, of the laws of which its very existence is a violation. That Government, therefore, is responsible for its action, and the injured parties have a claim upon it for indemnification and redress of the evils which they suffer. In existing circumstances, this is the only medium by which a remedy can be obtained. ”

“ The importance of this powerful agency for the prevention of injurious acts, is too obvious to need to be illustrated. If sufficiently at command, it would almost supersede the use of other means. It is, therefore, one of the first objects to the legislator to know, in what manner he can employ the pains of the popular sanction with the greatest possible effect.
To know how to direct the unfavourable sentiments of mankind, it is necessary to know in as complete, that is, in as comprehensive a way as possible, what it is which gives them birth. ”

“ On the other hand, there can be no case in which the law-maker makes certain conduct criminal without his thereby showing a wish and purpose to prevent that conduct. Prevention would accordingly seem to be the chief and only universal purpose of punishment. The law threatens certain pains if you do certain things, intending thereby to give you a new motive for not doing them. If you persist in doing them, it has to inflict the pains in order that its threats may continue to be believed. ”

“ But when I stated my view to a very eminent English judge the other day, he said, "You are discussing what the law ought to be; as the law is, you must show a right. A man is not liable for negligence unless he is subject to a duty." ”

“ It therefore affords a fair field for a discussion of the general principles of liability for unintentional wrongs at common law. For it can hardly be supposed that a man's responsibility for the consequences of his acts varies as the remedy happens to fall on one side or the other of the penumbra which separates trespass from the action on the case. ”