The Punishment of Death: A Selection of Articles from the Morning Herald, with Notes, 1. köide

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First compilation of a series of articles relating to the criminal law. Contains dozens of speeches, petitions and essays on the forgery laws, the penal codes of different nations, the use of interrogations, protests against specific criminal cases, etc.

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Page 177 - So dreadful a list, instead of diminishing, increases the number of offenders. The injured, through compassion, will often forbear to prosecute: juries, through compassion, will sometimes forget their oaths, and either acquit the guilty or mitigate the nature of the offence : and judges, through compassion, will respite one half of the convicts, and recommend them to the royal mercy.
Page 139 - ... to the common gaol or house of correction, there to be imprisoned only, or to be imprisoned and kept to hard labour...
Page 177 - Among so many chances of escaping, the needy and hardened offender overlooks the multitude that suffer; he boldly engages in some desperate attempt, to relieve his wants or supply his vices; and, if unexpectedly the hand of justice overtakes him, he deems himself peculiarly unfortunate, in falling at last a sacrifice to those laws, which long impunity has taught him to contemn.
Page 205 - The laws of the Roman kings, and the twelve tables of the decemviri, were full of cruel punishments : the Porcian law, which exempted all citizens from sentence of death, silently abrogated them all. In this period the republic flourished ; under the emperors severe punishments were revived ; and then the empire fell.
Page 169 - Juries to convict, lest they might bring upon their consciences ' the stain of blood ; and thus criminals who, under a more rational and • considerate code of laws, would meet the punishment due to their crimes, ' escape with complete impunity.
Page 139 - Felony, and be liable to be transported for Life, or for such Term, not less than Seven Years, as the Court before which...
Page 323 - ... or shall wilfully utter or deliver or produce to any person or persons acting under the authority of this Act any...
Page 323 - Act, or any Payment or Payments due or to become due thereon ; or if any Person or Persons shall wilfully, falsely, and deceitfully personate any true and real Nominee or Nominees, or shall wilfully utter or deliver or produce, to any Person or Persons acting under the Authority of this Act...
Page 312 - In this distinct and separate existence of the judicial power in a peculiar body of men, nominated indeed, but not removable at pleasure, by the crown, consists one main preservative of the public liberty which cannot subsist long in any state unless the administration of common justice be in some degree separated both from the legislative and also from the executive power.
Page 282 - Lord SUFFIELD, speaking on this subject in England, offered the following facts : He held in his hand, he said, a list of five hundred and fiftyfive perjured verdicts, delivered at the Old Bailey, in fifteen years, beginning with the year 1814, for the single offence of stealing from dwellings, the value stolen being in these cases sworn above forty shillings, but the verdicts returned being ' to the value of thirty-nine shillings

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