Penal Law Quotes

Slavery is not penal in character and planned by that law which commands the preservation of the natural order and forbids disturbance.

As freedom advances, the severity of the penal law decreases

I would rather see the objects of the war fail,—I would rather see the seamen of the country …. and our commerce swept away …, than see the long arm of the Treasury indirectly thrust into the pocket of the citizen through the penal law.

Eliminating the death penalty...will not hinder the prosecutorial capacity to seek, or the court's ability to impose, 'life without parole' sentences for serious, heinous crimes and criminals.

Penal law was not created by the common people, nor by the peasantry, nor by the proletariat, but entirely by the bourgeoisie as an important tactical weapon in this system of divisions which they wished to introduce.

Lead the people with administrative injunctions and put them in their place with penal law, and they will avoid punishments but will be without a sense of shame. Lead them with excellence and put them in their place through roles and ritual practices, and in addition to developing a sense of shame, they will order themselves harmoniously

Crime is only the retail department of what, in wholesale, we call penal law.

Punishment - The justice that the guilty deal out to those that are caught.

[We] relegate to the Moslem and Judaic religious authorities all matters relating to personal ethics, inheritance, and religious practices, leaving other civil and penal matters to the courts presided over by professional magistrates.

If any person should instigate others to plunder, and, in consequence, they should destroy anything, or steal any property, or animals; they shall be compelled to restore elevenfold the value of the property so stolen or destroyed, to him who was robbed.

Whenever the offense inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigor of penal law is obliged to give way to the common feelings of mankind.

I am told that the proximity of punishment arouses real repentance in the criminal and sometimes awakens a feeling of genuine remorse in the most hardened heart; I am told this is due to fear.

Sins may be forgiven. Crimes require punishment.

Punishment as punishment is not admissible unless the offender has had the freewill to select his course.

Prostitution is really the only crime in the penal law where two people are doing a thing mutually agreed upon and yet only one, the female partner, is subject to arrest.