Political offender

“ Strictly speaking, then, the power partakes of a political character, as it respects injuries to the society in its political character; and, on this account, it requires to be guarded in its exercise against the spirit of faction, the intolerance of party, and the sudden movements of popular feeling. The prosecution will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community, and to divide it into parties, more or less friendly, or hostile to the accused. ”

“ To those of you who owe your seats to your money, and who have bribed the miserable shopkeepers and beer-sellers who gave you in return your position as temporary legislators, I declare that you are worse criminals than the thieves whose offences are recorded in our ordinary calendars of crime. The educated scoundrels of rank and fashion, who corrupt and degrade the political vitality of a nation by bribing voters, ought to be subjected to the most severe and degrading punishments. ”

“ Tolerant as we are of all political efforts by argument or persuasion to change the basis of our social, economic or political life, the line if drawn sharply and clearly at any act or incitement to act in violation of our constitutional processes. Surely the Government need not await an employee's conviction of a crime involving disloyalty before separating him from public service. Governments cannot be indifferent to manifestations of subversion. ”

“ On the other hand, it cannot be denied that many cases of complex crimes, although the deed may have been committed from a political motive or for a political purpose, are such as ought not to be considered political. Such cases have roused the indignation of the whole civilised world, and have indeed endangered the very value of the principle of non-extradition of political criminals. ”

“ I readily admit that every political crime is by no means an honourable deed, which as such deserves protection. Still, political crimes are committed by the best of patriots, and, what is of more weight, they are in many cases a consequence of oppression on the part of the respective Governments. ”

“ These flexible standards, which vary with the mood or political philosophy of the prosecutor, are weapons which can be made as sharp or as blunt as the occasion requires. Since they are subject to grave abuse, they have no place in our system of law. When we employ them, we plant within our body politic the virus of the totalitarian ideology which we oppose. ”

“ It seemed, too, as if the dominant party made use of the occasion afforded by the real guilt of a few desperate and imprudent men, in order to persecute or disable the whole body of their political opponents. A great number of perfectly innocent individuals were thrown into prison, and suffered in person, property, and character. The whole body of reformers were subjected to suspicion, and to harassing proceedings, instituted by magistrates whose political leanings were notoriously adverse to them. ”

“ Tyrannical governments had immemorially utilized dictatorial criminal procedure and punishment to make scape goats of the weak, or of helpless political, religious, or racial minorities and those who differed, who would not conform and who resisted tyranny. ”

“ It is interesting to note the comparatively light sentences political offenders get in France. And then there is an established practice of amnesty. They rarely finish out their terms. Agitation for their release extends from the extreme revolutionary left to the members of the Chamber of Deputies, frequently backed by the liberal press. ”

“ If once we step outside the circle of legality, however, we find extremely confused, conflicting, and even unfair states of moral opinion regarding corruption. Public anger at some exposed villainy of this sort is apt to be both blind and exacting. Reform movements directed against corrupt abuses are no more free than are regular political organisations from partisan misrepresentation and partisan passion. ”

“ Instead of distinguishing crimes, I think we ought to distinguish between ordinary and political criminals, according to their determining motives, and the social bearings and historical moment of their acts. At the same time, whilst our criminal laws retain this distinction, I think it is useful to keep the jury for the trial of political crimes and offences, and for those connected with the press and with society as a whole ”

“ In the new state of things political crime is an act of simple revolt which cannot carry with it disgrace of any kind, which is combated for reasons of prudence, but which no longer merits the name of crime, for its author in no way resembles a criminal. ”

“ But, if a simple citizen, for any ordinary crime, receives immediate punishment, if it is so difficult to reach a political crime, is it not necessary that extraordinary laws ... intimidate the rebels and reach the culpable? ”

“ But worst of all is the practice which the police is resorting to, of bringing charges involving moral turpitude against prominent political workers simply with a view to lower them in the estimation of the public, knowing full well that they would not, according to the principles of Non-co-operation, produce any defense or even cross-examine the prosecution witnesses. ”

“ It has always been the contention of Liberals in opposition that a distinction should be drawn between criminals whose motives are political and criminals whose motives are personal, between those who break the law for private and anti-social ends and those who break it for ends which they honestly believe represent the advantage of their fellow-creatures. ”

“ It is a preposterous claim, I contend, that any misdemeanour and a fortiori any felony has, law apart, and even from a merely ethical point of view, any claim to special consideration and leniency on the bare declaration of the felon or misdemeanant that it had been dictated by political motive. In no country, at any time, has the mere assertion of political motive been held to bring an ordinary crime within the sphere of treatment of political offences. ”

“ The theoretical distinction of the classical school between ordinary and political crimes is not very precise, for the so- called political crimes are either not crimes (as when they are confined to the manifestation of an idea) , or they are common crimes which spring from a lofty and social passion in individuals, who have the characteristics of the criminal by passion, or, in other words,—are but quasi-criminals ”

“ Thus with the supporters of the prosecution overwhelmingly successful at the Republican and Democratic primaries, there was grave danger that their purposes would be set aside by political manipulation. ”

“ If political power shall be lost because of such denial, not imposed because of participation in rebellion or other crime, it is to be hoped that political interests may work in the line of justice, and that the end will be the impartial enfranchisement of all citizens not disqualified by crime. ”

“ Whoever incites others by spreading rumors or slanders or any other means to subvert the State power or overthrow the socialist system shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than five years, criminal detention, public surveillance or deprivation of political rights ”

“ The punishments are so considerable, the means of investigation so active, and the public watchfulness so keen, both on account of the party hostility and by virtue of a sensational press, that it would be hardly comprehensible psychologically, if political crime in the lowest strata of city or state were to be really anything but the exception. ”

“ It has stirred up their sense of duty and responsibility. It has quickened their public spirit. Seldom has public opinion been more vigilant in watching the conduct of the representatives and servants of the people; seldom has it been more powerful in enforcing the condemnation of malefactors and the correction of abuses. But a few years ago, any public man, who, against the wishes and pretended interests of his party, insisted upon the investigation and exposure of malpractice, could be trampled down and ostracized as a traitor. ”

“ He says that the political criminal is the victim of an attempt of a more or less despotic government to preserve its own stability. He is not necessarily guilty of an unsocial offense; he simply tries to overturn a certain political order which may itself be anti-social. ”

“ For crimes of a dark political hue, which, by their tendency to subvert the government or destroy the institutions of the country, necessarily assume a character highly dangerous to the safety and well-being of the state, it might be difficult to say what degree of punishment would be excessive or unusual. ”

“ Common crimes are almost invariably anti-social in their nature, while offenses which are directly or indirectly political are usually social in their intent, and are frequently beneficial to society in their ultimate effect. ”

“ He had been, in his day, a dishonest political henchman, well-known for his exploits; then, supported by the liberal leader whose election he had worked for, he escaped prison and entered the police service. ”

“ Anyone who makes or circulates statements proving a malicious, baiting or low-minded attitude toward leading personalities of the State or the NSDAP, or toward orders issued by them or toward institutions created by them—fit to undermine the confidence of the people in its political leadership—shall be punished with imprisonment. ”

“ It may perhaps be doubted, whether it was originally necessary, that this right of control and punishment, should extend beyond offences in the exercise of parliamentary duty, since all other crimes are cognizable by other courts. But they, who are the only judges of their own rights, have exerted the power of expulsion on other occasions, and when wickedness arrived at a certain magnitude, have considered an offence against society as an offence against the House. ”

“ Few forms of political evil are more dangerous than the fear sometimes displayed by mayors or governors that the vigorous employment of the police to suppress rioting may cost them votes when they come up for re-election. ”

“ A man at the prosecution table had risen.
"Please the court," he began, "the defendant, Wilbur Whately, is here charged with political irresponsibility and excessive atrocity in exercising his constitutional right of criticism of a practicing politician. ”

“ Trifling disorders, springing from political discontent, have been treated as serious crimes, and people who offended, not out of private malice or greed, but out of a desire to improve the conditions of society, have been subjected to harsh and degrading punishments. ”

“ Fully as guilty and even guiltier, are the “highly respectable” receivers of the stolen goods, the instigators and principal beneficiaries of the public robbery, who use the corrupt politicians as their tools in plundering the city or the State or the Nation; who, in order to fill their own pockets, contrive to debauch legislatures and executive officers; who, if they can, will buy up the bar and the bench to protect them from the exposures and punishments they deserve ”

“ This Journal, then, is a depository for every species of political sophistry and personal calumny. There is no abuse or corruption that does not there find a jesuitical palliation or a bare-faced vindication. There we meet the slime of hypocrisy, the varnish of courts, the cant of pedantry, the cobwebs of the law, the iron hand of power. Its object is as mischievous as the means by which it is pursued are odious. ”

“ It is hard to conceive of the utter demoralization, of the political blindness and immorality, of the patriotic dishonesty, of the cruelty and degradation of a people who supplemented the incomparable Declaration of Independence with the Fugitive Slave Law. ”

“ The fault of this country is the want of measure in political life. Flat acquiescence in illegality, followed by sanguinary reaction—that, senores, is not the way to a stable and prosperous future.” ”

“ Under all these circumstances, do you really feel yourselves justified to break up this Government unless such a court decision as yours is shall be at once submitted to as a conclusive and final rule of political action? But you will not abide the election of a Republican President! In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, "stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you'll be a murderer!"
To be sure, what the robber demanded of me-my money was my own, and I had a clear right to keep it; ”

“ Political judgments are generally vain formalities, for the same passions which give rise to the accusation ordain to the condemnation. Such is the atrocious logic of revolutions. ”

“ But reflecting persons perceived that when society is itself the tyrant—society collectively, over the separate individuals who compose it—its means of tyrannizing are not restricted to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political functionaries. Society can and does execute its own mandates: ”

“ Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbours, films, football, beer, and above all, gambling, filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult. A few agents of the Thought Police moved always among them, spreading false rumours and marking down and eliminating the few individuals who were judged capable of becoming dangerous; but no attempt was made to indoctrinate them with the ideology of the Party. It was not desirable that the proles should have strong political feelings. ”

“ For the same reason, the publication of falsehood and calumny against public officers, or candidates for public offices, is an offence dangerous to the people, and deserves punishment, because the people may be deceived, and reject their best citizens, to their great injury, and, it may be to the loss of their liberties. ”