Punishment
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3.The measure and proportion of penalties
3a.Proportion of penalty to offence
Herodotus, An Account of EgyptVol. 33
- p. 69The Ethiopian king never puts wrongdoers to death but sentences them to embankment labor in proportion to the wrong.read · scan
Ecclesiastes; or, The PreacherVol. 44
- p. 344–345Delayed sentence emboldens wrongdoing; it shall not be well with the wicked.read · scan
Marcus Tullius Cicero, Letters of CiceroVol. 9
- p. 90–94Laments that punishment is most severe when conduct has been most unexceptionable.read · scan
Luke, The Gospel According to LukeVol. 44
- p. 388–389Unfaithful servants are beaten; the knowing more severely than the ignorant; much given, much required.read · scan
Plutarch, CiceroVol. 12
- p. 234Senate debates death versus confiscation and imprisonment for the Catiline conspirators; Caesar proposes the milder sentence, Cato's speech carries execution.read · scan
Plutarch, AntonyVol. 12
- p. 338Antony is severe in punishments yet more extravagant in generosity.read · scan
Tacitus, GermanyVol. 33
- p. 99–100Penalties vary with the crime: traitors hanged, cowards smothered in bogs, lesser faults fined in cattle.read · scan
Pliny the Younger, Letters of PlinyVol. 9
- p. 374–375Pliny asks what punishment fits the slave recruits; Trajan assigns guilt to officers, substitutes' senders or the volunteers themselves.read · scan
Chapters from the KoranVol. 45
- p. 977–978Killing a believer by mistake requires freeing a slave, blood-money or fasting; deliberate killing is punished by eternal hell and God's curse.read · scan
Stories from the Thousand and One NightsVol. 16
- p. 141Bride whips the husband and cuts off his thumbs and toes for eating zirbajeh without washing his hands, an extreme penalty.read · scan
Benvenuto Cellini, The Autobiography of Benvenuto CelliniVol. 31
- p. 29Magistrates reprimand him and the penalty distinctions between a box and a blow on the ear are debated.read · scan
- p. 29–30Magistrates sentence Cellini to pay four measures of flour as alms; a box on the ear is fined more than a blow.read · scan
Miguel de Cervantes, The History of Don Quixote of the Mancha, Part IVol. 14
- p. 75Sancho holds that once the debt is paid no new punishment is owed unless a new fault is committed.read · scan
- p. 210Slander of the queen is called a madness worthy of the severest punishment.read · scan
Nathaniel Ward, The Body of LibertiesVol. 43
- p. 84–85Proportionable punishments for violators; officers fined for neglecting to read them.read · scan
Jean Racine, PhaedraVol. 26
- p. 155–157Phaedra says punishment should be proportioned to offence and that no woman deserved more pity.read · scan
William Penn, Some Fruits of SolitudeVol. 1
- p. 353–354Bribes should be punished as severely as defrauding the state.read · scan
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in FranceVol. 24
- p. 273–274Punishing men for the offences of ancestors or corporate predecessors is unjust; motives of profit taint accusations.read · scan
- p. 274–275Corporate bodies and nations are immortal for the members' good, not for their punishment for past deeds.read · scan
- p. 276–277The author and players go unpunished while the archbishop is driven from his flock for a sixteenth-century cardinal's crimes.read · scan
Friedrich Schiller, William TellVol. 26
- p. 398–399Vindictive, unjust punishment of an innocent father for his son's offence.read · scan
- p. 441–442Missing the shot will cost Tell his head; the cap offence is punished disproportionately.read · scan
Alessandro Manzoni, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed)Vol. 21
- p. 42–43Renzo asks whether any penalty exists for threatening a curate and forbidding a marriage.read · scan
John Stuart Mill, AutobiographyVol. 25
- p. 44Classification of Offences applies scientific method to punishable acts by pleasurable and painful consequences.read · scan
John Stuart Mill, On LibertyVol. 25
- p. 276No one should be punished merely for drunkenness, but a soldier or policeman drunk on duty should be.read · scan
- p. 294Penalties may be increased for a man who offends while drunk; compulsory labor may enforce neglected duties like supporting children.read · scan
- p. 294Questions the anomaly of punishing the accessory (procurer, gambling-house keeper) while the principal goes free.read · scan
John Ruskin, Sesame and LiliesVol. 28
- p. 114Unequal penalties: children jailed for petty theft while great thieves escape; sentimentality toward murderers.read · scan
3b.Fixed penalties versus judicial discretion
See also: Law 9a
Plutarch, CiceroVol. 12
- p. 233–234The senate debates the penalty for the conspirators; Silanus proposes imprisonment and the utmost penalty.read · scan
The Destruction of Dá Derga's HostelVol. 49
- p. 204–205They test what punishment the king will inflict; he sentences the marauders, but favours his fosterlings.read · scan
John Winthrop, Arbitrary Government Described and the Government of the Massachusetts Vindicated from That AspersionVol. 43
- p. 90–91Prescribed penalties versus sentences fitted to each case; if all were prescribed any schoolboy could pronounce them.read · scan
- p. 91–92God may sentence before offence; man cannot, and great offences are left to judges' discretion.read · scan
- p. 92–93Penalties should pain but not destroy; a fixed fine is nothing to the rich and ruinous to the poor.read · scan
- p. 93–94Prescribed penalties preclude admonition, mercy and dispensation; Scripture cases show pardon and mitigation for repentance, service or public good.read · scan
- p. 95Questions by what rule men prescribe penalties where God prescribes none; scriptural examples are not warrants against God's rules.read · scan
- p. 96Penalty is an evil in the subject; unjust prescribed penalties bring woe.read · scan
- p. 97Prescribed penalties may be lawful where a rule permits a just sentence.read · scan
- p. 98Defends God's fixed penalties by sovereignty and desert; some penalties like death admit no increase.read · scan
- p. 99Penalty varies with aggravation and applies only after sentence; scriptural precedents guide judges by equity.read · scan
- p. 99–100Those held by fear are better kept fearing a greater unspecified punishment.read · scan
- p. 103Considers prescribed penalties, torture, and death sentences via David, Saul and Jonathan, as lawful or pernicious precedents.read · scan
- p. 104Inquires into a rule for prescribed penalties, finding inequality in sentences for breaches of moral laws.read · scan
Alessandro Manzoni, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed)Vol. 21
- p. 43–44Penalties listed: fines, corporal punishment, banishment, galleys, death at the governor's will.read · scan
- p. 450Decrees threaten pecuniary, corporal and galley penalties at the Excellency's will.read · scan
3c.The excessive severity of harsh criminal codes
See also: Labor 10c · Law 8b · Government 6e
Buddhist WritingsVol. 45
- p. 672–673Imprisonment and beating are meted out to poor offenders for small thefts.read · scan
Sir Thomas More, UtopiaVol. 36
- p. 142A lawyer praises rigorous justice hanging twenty thieves at once, yet wonders why thieves remain so rife.read · scan
- p. 142Hanging for simple theft exceeds justice, is cruel and fails to deter; livelihoods should be provided so none are driven to steal.read · scan
- p. 142Those made vagrant by eviction are justly hanged for stealing or imprisoned for idleness though none will employ them.read · scan
- p. 142Hanging thieves is unjust when society breeds them; it makes thieves and then punishes them.read · scan
- p. 142Raphael argues death is too severe for theft, while the Cardinal asks what deterrent would suffice.read · scan
- p. 142Equal death penalty for thief and murderer provokes thieves to kill witnesses; Romans used penal labor instead.read · scan
William Harrison, A Description of Elizabethan EnglandVol. 35
- p. 305Vagabonds are whipped, ear-burned, and on repeat offence executed as felons; harsh penalties fail to restrain them.read · scan
- p. 369Hundreds of rogues hanged yearly; Henry VIII hanged seventy-two thousand thieves, yet the number grows.read · scan
William Penn, More Fruits of SolitudeVol. 1
- p. 391Trade that effeminates the people is a capital crime to be severely punished by magistrates.read · scan
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of NationsVol. 10
- p. 411Statutes punish wool exporters with mutilation, forfeiture, felony and death; Smith hopes such savage penalties were never executed.read · scan
- p. 411–412Wool-export penalties are ruinous: forfeiture, transportation, imprisonment and felony; Smith says the law means to ruin the offender completely.read · scan
- p. 544Smuggling of salt and tobacco sends hundreds yearly to the galleys and gibbet under harsh revenue laws.read · scan
Alessandro Manzoni, I Promessi Sposi (The Betrothed)Vol. 21
- p. 10Threats of galleys, rack and torture as remedy for bravoes.read · scan
- p. 11–12Each edict increases severe penalties, 'increasing the dose' like a remedy for obstinate disease.read · scan
- p. 16Exorbitant penalties and procedure designed to condemn, yet the violent go unpunished.read · scan
- p. 227The proclamations specify a proper punishment for each villainy, yet none is inflicted.read · scan
- p. 528–529Severe penalties are threatened to the plague officers, but they escape all supervision.read · scan
- p. 561–562Torture-apparatus erected in every square so deputies can arbitrarily punish anyone they deem deserving; an extravagant, ineffective remedy.read · scan
Ralph Waldo Emerson, English TraitsVol. 5
- p. 346Flogging, impressment, torture, racking and harsh criminal codes persist in England, condemned by Romilly.read · scan
3d.Limits on cruel punishments and legal safeguards
See also: Constitution 6b · Law 9e · Justice 7c
Plutarch, CaesarVol. 12
- p. 269Caesar argues against executing Catiline's conspirators without trial, proposing confinement instead.read · scan
Pliny the Younger, Letters of PlinyVol. 9
- p. 294–297Footnote: law punishing false accusers with a mark or the penalty the accused would have suffered.read · scan
- p. 319Death and banishment are incompatible penalties.read · scan
Benvenuto Cellini, The Autobiography of Benvenuto CelliniVol. 31
- p. 213The Pope in fury orders Cellini given three days to prepare a defence.read · scan
Nathaniel Ward, The Body of LibertiesVol. 43
- p. 72–73Limits on whipping, executions and torture; no barbarous or inhumane bodily punishments; gentlemen spared whipping.read · scan
The Instrument of GovernmentVol. 43
- p. 110–111Illegal voters forfeit estate; officials neglecting writs are guilty of high treason.read · scan
- p. 111–112Officials neglecting duty to hold elections are guilty of high treason.read · scan
Constitution of the United StatesVol. 43
- p. 182–183Impeachment judgment limited to removal and disqualification, leaving the convicted liable to ordinary trial and punishment.read · scan
- p. 189–190Removal from office on conviction for treason, bribery or high crimes.read · scan
- p. 190–191Treason punishment set by Congress, with no corruption of blood.read · scan
- p. 194–195Bars excessive bail, excessive fines and cruel and unusual punishments.read · scan
Percy Bysshe Shelley, The CenciVol. 18
- p. 310The conspirators fear death and infamy as the legal penalty for killing Cenci.read · scan
John Stuart Mill, On LibertyVol. 25
- p. 210–211Instigation to tyrannicide may be punished only if an overt act follows and is connected to it.read · scan
Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Two Years Before the MastVol. 23
- p. 141–142Nicholas fears being tried a second time in the US for a past offense, though he was acquitted.read · scan
- p. 359Statute prescribes imprisonment and fine for captains who maltreat seamen.read · scan
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