A Quote by Lawrence M. Friedman

Criminal law has to do with relations between the misbehaving individual and his government...Criminal law establishes rules of conduct; their breach, if prosecuted and conviction follows, results in punishment.

Lawrence M. Friedman

Quote Topics

Between Breach Conduct Conviction Criminal Law Follows Government His Individual Law Misbehaving Punishment Relations Results Rules

Quote Author

Lawrence M. Friedman
American - Professor
Born: April 2, 1930

Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill it teaches the whole people by example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means - to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal - would bring terrible retributions.

Louis D. Brandeis

In existing criminology there are concepts: a criminal man, a criminal profession, a criminal society, a criminal sect, and a criminal tribe, but there is no concept of a criminal state, or a criminal government, or criminal legislation. Consequently what is often regarded as "political" activity is in fact a criminal activity.

P.D. Ouspensky

To declare that in the administration of criminal law the end justifies the means to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure conviction of a private criminal would bring terrible retribution.

Louis D. Brandeis

There are certain irregularities which are not the subject of criminal law. But when the criminal law happens to be auxiliary to the law of morality, I do not feel any inclination to explain it away.

Sherrilyn Kenyon

From the standpoint of any sane person, the present problem of capitalist concentration is not only a question of law, but of criminal law, not to mention criminal lunacy.

Gilbert K. Chesterton

We have secrets, and we have the same secrets that criminals have. Sometimes the only difference between a criminal and a law-abiding citizen is that somebody found out the criminal's secret.

Jane Velez-Mitchell

But for their right to judge of the law, and the justice of the law, juries would be no protection to an accused person, even as to matters of fact; for, if the government can dictate to a jury any law whatever, in a criminal case, it can certainly dictate to them the laws of evidence.

Lysander Spooner

Under the antitrust laws, a man becomes a criminal from the moment he goes into business, no matter what he does. If he complies with one of these laws, he faces criminal prosecution under several others. For instance, if he charges prices which some bureaucrats judge as too high, he can be prosecuted for monopoly or for a successful 'intent to monopolize'; if he charges prices lower than those of his competitors, he can be prosecuted for 'unfair competition' or 'restraint of trade'; and if he charges the same prices as his competitors, he can be prosecuted for 'collusion' or 'conspiracy.'

Ayn Rand

There is all the difference in the world between the criminal's avoiding the public eye and the civil disobedience's taking the law into his own hands in open defiance. This distinction between an open violation of the law, performed in public, and a clandestine one is so glaringly obvious that it can be neglected only by prejudice or ill will.

Hannah Arendt

There is no law in the world - there is no law unwritten, there's no law on the books - that's gonna stop a criminal from getting a gun.

Rush Limbaugh

But it is recognized that punishment for the abuse of the liberty accorded to the press is essential to the protection of the public, and that the common law rules that subject the libeler to responsibility for the public offense, as well as for the private injury, are not abolished by the protection extended in our constitutions. The law of criminal libel rests upon that secure foundation. There is also the conceded authority of courts to punish for contempt when publications directly tend to prevent the proper discharge of judicial functions.

Charles Evans Hughes

An individual's refusal to carry out the criminal acts of his government sets the stage, in the most effective way possible, for the attempt to demonstrate the criminal nature of these acts.

Noam Chomsky

For every criminal case, the judge must construct a perfect syllogism: the major premise must be the general law; the minor premise, whether or not the action in question is in compliance with the law; and the conclusion, acquittal or punishment.

Cesare Beccaria

Instead of focusing on what the law says about trans people, which is really what the law is saying about itself as a protector of trans people, we should be focused on what systems of law and administration do to trans people and our interventions should aim to dismantle harmful, violent systems such as criminal punishment and immigration enforcement.

Dean Spade

Do you think that it is possible to have a dialogue with the representatives of Lugansk and Donetsk if they all are being prosecuted and subject to criminal proceedings? That is exactly why the Minsk Agreements establish to adopt an amnesty law. However, it has not been adopted.