Punishable offense

“ In the instant case we are dealing with a statute that invokes punishment as for a felony where the same conduct, if committed in a non-labor dispute, would be a misdemeanor—an offense as to which the guilty party might be discharged upon payment of a small fine, as compared with a possible two-year prison term. ”

“ Punishment by the blow or the immediate sentence will be futile. The offender must know he has trespassed in a realm beyond your administration and rule; he has done more than commit an offense against you. ”

“ The present laws have left no part of the punishment in the hands of individuals; the crime is punishable only by fine. The amount of the fine, though fixed, is in proportion to the rank of the criminal. ”

“ That any violation of any of the provisions of this act, or of the act of which this is amendatory, the punishment of which is not otherwise herein provided for, shall be deemed a misdemeanor, and shall be punishable by a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or both such fine and imprisonment. ”

“ When a man has resolved upon a particular offense, the next object is, to induce him to do no more mischief than what is necessary for his purpose: therefore
The punishment should be adjusted in such manner to each particular offence, that for every part of the mischief there may be a motive to restrain the offender frown giving birth to it. ”

“ Such penalties, moreover, owe their efficiency not to the degree of pain or inconvenience that they impose upon the offender, but mainly upon their calling his attention, distinctly, after every offense, to the fact that he has done wrong. Slight as this is, it will prove to be sufficient if it always comes—if no case of disobedience or of willful wrong-doing of any kind is allowed to pass unnoticed, or is not followed by the infliction of the proper penalty. It is in all cases the certainty, and not the severity, of punishment which constitutes its power. ”

“ If the State has decided that a fine, and not imprisonment, is the appropriate punishment for an offense, the State’s interest in taking a person suspected of committing that offense into custody is surely limited, at best. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Penal laws, strictly and properly, are those imposing punishment for an offense committed against the state, and which, by the English and American Constitutions, the executive of the state has the power to pardon.' Besides, the act throughout uses the words 'fine,' and 'fined,'-words which, in their primary sense, import the punishment of a person convicted of crime. ”

“ Where it is inefficacious: including cases where the penal provision has not come before the offender's notice, where he is unaware of the consequences of his act, or where he is not a free agent. 3. Cases where it is unprofitable: that is, when the evil of the punishment exceeds the evil of the offense. (The evils of punishment, which have to be summed up and set against the good, are (1) coercion or restraint, (2) the uneasiness of apprehension, (3) the actual suffering, (4) the suffering caused to all those that are in sympathy with the person punished.) ”

“ And the state may undoubtedly provide that persons who have been before convicted of crime may suffer severer punishment for subsequent offenses than for a first offense against the law, and that a different punishment for the same offense may be inflicted under particular circumstances, provided it is dealt out to all alike who are similarly situated. ”

“ When the deed is done he recognizes that the punishment is out of all proportion to the offence,—which is in itself the primary recognition of a penal code,—and more especially that the judgment of man is against him. ”

“ Where the words are not in themselves actionable, because the offence imputed involves neither moral turpitude nor subjects the offender to an infamous punishment, special damage must be alleged and proved in order to maintain the action. ”

“ A certain number of explanatory definitions follow, of which the most important concern attempts to commit offences, and in “crimes” they are punishable if the execution of the attempt was only prevented by circumstances beyond the will of the offender, whilst in “délits” an attempt is not punishable as an offence unless the law specially provides that it should be punished. As regards “contraventions,” attempts not carried out are not held to be offences at all. Accomplices are generally subject to the same punishment as the principal. ”

“ In many atrocious cases it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to obtain proof sufficient to convict the offender; but whenever a violator of those laws, whether a principal or accessory, is arrested, tried, and convicted, THE PUNISHMENT SHOULD BE SURE TO FOLLOW. The certainty of punishment is a mighty preventive to crime. ”

“ Rather, an offender's background and character unrelated to his crime should be considered by the sentencer because of society's deeply felt view that punishment should reflect both the seriousness of a crime and the nature of the offender. ”

“ 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 various punishments which are inflicted upon our law breakers are fines, imprisonment, flogging, and death.
Fines produce a very useful means of dealing with persons whose offences show a tendency to crime rather than to actual criminality. In many cases the self-respect of the offender has not been sacrificed, and while under arrest the sense of shame is deeply aroused. ”

“ It also punishes the solicitation or incitement of others to commit crime, as a separate offence if the incitement fails, as the offence of being accessory before the fact or abettor if the offence is committed as a result of the incitement; and it punishes persons who, after a more serious crime—felony—has been committed, do any act to shield the offender from justice. ”

“ In every system of penal jurisprudence it seems to be of the first importance to let it be felt that the true degradation lies more in the crime itself, than in the expiatory punishment by which it is followed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The wretch stained with crime—polluted with iniquity—for which, perhaps, the statute-book contains neither name nor indictment—whose trembling lips are eager to avow that guilt which, by confessing, he hopes may alleviate the penalty—this man, I say, is checked in his intentions—he is warned not, by any chance expression, to hazard a conviction of his crime, and told in the language of the law not to criminate himself. ”

“ THE laws do not punish the intention; nevertheless, an attempt, which manifests the intention of committing a crime, deserves a punishment, though less, perhaps, than if the crime were actually perpetrated. The importance of preventing even attempts to commit a crime sufficiently authorises a punishment ”

“ By the common, as well as by the statute, law, men are often punished for aggravated misconduct or lawless acts, by means of a civil action, and the damages inflicted by way of penalty or punishment given to the party injured. ”

“ The court said: 'The offense was intentionally committed in the presence of the court. When the first blow was struck, that instant the contempt was complete, and jurisdiction attached. It did not depend upon the arrest of the offender, nor upon his being in actual custody, nor even upon his remaining in the presence of the court. When the offense was committed he was in the presence, and, constructively, at least, in the power, of the court. He may by flight escape merited punishment; but that cannot otherwise affect the right or the power of the court. ”

“ But does our theory, after all has been said about the wrongness of punishment that is not just, afford any standard for the apportionment of just punishment, any criterion of the amount of interference with a criminal's personal rights that is appropriate to his crime, except such as is afforded by a prevalent impression among men as to what is necessary for their security? Can we construe it so as to afford such a criterion, without at the same time condemning a great deal of punishment which yet society could be never brought to dispense with? ”

“ Did we punish criminals merely from an intellectual appreciation of the expediency of so doing, and not because their crimes arouse in us the emotion of anger and the instinct of retribution, the criminal law would be but a feeble instrument. ”

“ Is there any spirit of revenge in the magistrates or officers of justice when they punish criminals? Why do such, ordinarily I mean, concern themselves in inflicting punishments, but because it is their duty? and why may not a private man deliver an offender into the hands of justice, from the same laudable motive? ”

“ With many, the test of justice in penal infliction is that the punishment should be proportioned to the offence; meaning that it should be exactly measured by the moral guilt of the culprit (whatever be their standard for measuring moral guilt) : the consideration, what amount of punishment is necessary to deter from the offence, having nothing to do with the question of justice, in their estimation: while there are others to whom that consideration is all in all ”

“ I have often spoken of our penal law as wrong in its principle, taking it for granted that the ignorant and miserable men who commit crime do it always from wickedness, and not from the pressure of circumstances which have brutalized the man; wrong in its aim, which is to take vengeance on the offender, and not to do him a good in return for the evil he has done ”

“ THE more immediately after the commission of a crime, a punishment is inflicted, the more just and useful it will be. It will be more just, because it spares the criminal the cruel and superfluous torment of uncertainty, which increases in proportion to the strength of his imagination and the sense of his weakness; and because the privation of liberty, being a punishment, ought to be inflicted before condemnation, but for as short a time as possible. ”

“ Against the theory of punishments as established here by us, there is usually opposed another theory, which establishes an absolute right of punishment, and looks upon judicial punishment not as a means, but as an end in itself. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I say NO—that if there be blood guiltiness let the offender be punished in accordance with our criminal code; if there be none then is he blameless, and to deprive a person of his property because of a harmless act is a crime. ”

“ A crime, which ought to be strictly and impartially proved, and then as strictly and impartially punished. But it is an offence of so dark a nature, so easily charged, and the negative so difficult to be proved, that the accusation should be clearly made out: for, if false, it deserves a punishment inferior only to that of the crime itself. ”

“ Is it the end of punishment to act as a deterrent? We are often told from the judicial bench that a man receives a certain sentence as a warning and example to others. If such is the end of punishment it lamentably fails in its purpose, for in a number of cases it neither deters the offender nor the class from which the offender springs. ”

“ The end of punishment, therefore, is no other, than to prevent the criminal from doing further injury to society, and to prevent others from committing the like offence. Such punishments, therefore, and such a mode of inflicting them, ought to be chosen, as will make the strongest and most lasting impressions on the minds of others, with the least torment to the body of the criminal. ”

“ The offender may either have done the wrongful act on purpose, or he may have done it carelessly, and in each case the mental attitude of the doer is such as to make punishment effective. If he intentionally chose the wrong, penal discipline will furnish him with a sufficient motive to choose the right instead for the future. If, on the other hand, he committed the forbidden act without wrongful intent, but yet for want of sufficient care devoted to the avoidance of it, punishment will be an effective inducement to carefulness in the future. ”

“ After positive conviction, no punishment can be too severe for a crime that produces such mischief; but to degrade a man by corporal punishment, to ruin his character, and render him an object of abhorrence and contempt, in the absence of even bare presumptive evidence, was an act of cruelty and injustice, which could excite but one feeling ”