A Quote by Louis D. Brandeis
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.
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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.
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.
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.
There are any number of socially relevant causes that publicly minded individuals may feel strongly about. In a democracy, it is for the government of the day to legislate laws to deal with such issues. Not for courts to issue advisories and declare criminal what may often be normal economic activity protecting livelihoods.
When the Commander-in-Chief of a nation finds it necessary to order employees of the government or agencies of the government to do things that would technically break the law, he has to be able to declare it legal for them to do that.
Call yourself "Colonel" and declare that your fortune was left to you by Dutch burghers from the seventeenth century. Now you're a solid citizen, the embodiment of hard work and rugged individualism. You're no criminal. The criminal is the guy who comes up short, who gets caught, who fails to adopt a respectable cover.
It is essential that we aggressively pursue all criminal offenders, especially those who commit these heinous crimes against women - and seek the maximum penalties under the law.
I have never stuck up for any criminal. I have merely asked for the orderly administration of an impartial justice...Due legal process is my own safeguard against being convicted unjustly. To my mind, that's government. That's law and order.
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.
I categorically declare first my absolute innocence, second my lack of criminal intent, and third my effusive apologies.
For a government to declare a vice to be a crime, and to punish it as such, is an attempt to falsify the very nature of things. It is as absurd as it would be to declare truth to be falsehood, or falsehood truth.
For a government to declare a vice to be a crime, and to punish it as such, is an attempt to falsify the very nature of things. It is as absurd as it would be to declare truth to be a falsehood, or falsehood a truth.
A proper criminal justice system exacts justice - that is, punishes criminals for their crimes. Rehabilitation and deterrence are worthy goals, but they are secondary to retribution.
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.
When we think of a criminal, we imagine someone with criminal motives. And when we look at Eichmann, he doesn't actually have any criminal motives. Not what is usually understood by "criminal motives." He wanted to go along with the rest. He wanted to say "we," and going-along-with-the-rest and wanting-to-say-we like this were quite enough to make the greatest of all crimes possible. The Hitlers, after all, really aren't the ones who are typical in this kind of situation--they'd be powerless without the support of others.
There is nothing anyone can do anyway. The public has no power. The government knows I'm not a criminal. The parole board knows I'm not a criminal. The judge knows I'm not a criminal.
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