gulations, which successive conquerors or factions have established, in the various revolutions of government; from giving a lasting efficacy to sanctions that were intended to be temporary, and made, as lord Bacon expresses it, merely upon the spur of the occasion; or from, lastly, too hastily employing such means as are greatly disproportionate to their end, in order to check the progress of some very prevalent offence; from some, or from all, of these causes it hath happened, that the criminal law is in every country of Europe more rude and imperfect than the civil. I shall not here enter into any minute inquiries concerning the local constitutions of other nations: the inhumanity and mistaken policy of which have been sufficiently pointed out by ingenious writers of their own. But even with us in England, where our crown law is with justice supposed to be more nearly advanced to perfection; where crimes are more accurately defined, and penalties less uncertain and arbitrary; where all our accusations are public, and our trials in the face of the world; where torture is unknown, and every delinquent is judged by such of his equals, against whom he can form no exception nor even a personal dislike;—even here we shall occasionally find room to remark some particulars that seem to want revision and amendment. These have chiefly arisen from too scrupulous an adherence to some rules of the ancient common law, when the reasons have ceased upon which those rules were founded; from not repealing such of the old penal laws as are either obsolete or absurd; and from too little care and attention in framing and passing new ones. The enacting of penalties, to which a whole nation should be subject, ought not to be left as a matter of indifference to the passions or interests of a few, who upon temporary motives may prefer or support such a bill; but be calmly and maturely con· sidered by persons who know what provisions the laws have already made to remedy the mischief complained of, who can from experience foresee the probable consequences of those which are now proposed, and who will judge without passion or prejudice how adequate they are to the evil. It is never usual in the house of peers even to read a private bill, which may affect the property of an 4 Baron Montesquieu, marquis Beccaria, &c. individual, without first referring it to some of the learned judges, and hearing their report thereon. And surely equal precaution is necessary, when laws are to be established, which may affect the property, the liberty, and perhaps even the lives, of thousands. Had such a reference taken place, it is impossible that in the eighteenth century it could ever have been made a capital crime, to break down, however maliciously, the mound of a fishpond, whereby any fish shall escape; or to cut down a cherry-tree in an orchard. Were even a committee appointed but once in an hundred years to revise the criminal law, it could not have continued to this hour a felony without benefit of clergy, to be seen for one month in the company of persons who call themselves, or are called Egyptians." (1) It is true, that these outrageous penalties, being seldom or never inflicted, are hardly known to be law by the public: but that rather aggravates the mischief, by laying a snare for the unwary. Yet they cannot but occur to the observation of any one, who hath undertaken the task of examining the great outlines of the English law, and tracing them up to their principles: and it is the duty of such a one to hint them with decency to those, whose abilities and stations enable them to apply the remedy. Having therefore premised this apology for some of the ensuing remarks, which might otherwise seem to savour of arrogance, I proceed now to consider, in the first place, the general nature of crimes. I. A crime, or misdemesnor, is an act committed, or omitted, in violation of a public law, either forbidding or commanding it. This general definition comprehends both crimes and misdemesnors; which, properly speaking, are mere synonymous terms: though, in common e See Vol. II. p. 318. Geo. II. c. 42. f Stat. 9 Geo. I. c. 22. 31 g Stat. 5 Eliz. c. 20. (1) The statute 23 G. III. c.51. after reciting that an act made in the fifth year of the reign of queen Elizabeth, intituled, "An act for further punishment of vagabonds calling themselves Egyptians," is and ought to be considered as a law of excessive severity; enacts that the said act shall be repealed. WRONGS. usage, the word "crimes" is made to denote such offences as are of a deeper and more atrocious dye; while smaller faults, and omissions of less consequence, are comprised under the gentler name of "misdemesnors" only. The distinction of public wrongs from private, of crimes and misdemesnors from civil injuries, seems principally to consist in this: that private wrongs, or civil injuries, are an infringement or privation of the civil rights which belong to individuals, considered merely as individuals: public wrongs, or crimes and misdemesnors, are a breach and violation of the public rights and duties, due to the whole community, considered as a community, in its social aggregate capacity. As if I detain a field from another man, to which the law has given him a right, this is a civil injury, and not a crime; for here only the right of an individual is concerned, and it is immaterial to the public, which of us is in possession of the land: but treason, murder, and robbery are properly ranked among crimes; since, besides the injury done to individuals, they strike at the very being of society, which cannot possibly subsist, where actions of this sort are suffered to escape with impunity. In all cases the crime includes an injury: every public offence is also a private wrong, and somewhat more; it affects the individual, and it likewise affects the community. Thus treason in imagining the king's death involves in it conspiracy against an individual, which is also a civil injury; but as this species of treason in its consequences principally tends to the dissolution of government, and the destruction thereby of the order and peace of society, this denominates it a crime of the highest magnitude. Murder is an injury to the life of an individual; but the law of society considers principally the loss which the state sus tains by being deprived of a member, and the pernicious example thereby set for others to do the like. Robbery may be considered in the same view it is an injury to private property; but were that all, a civil satisfaction in damages might atone for it: the public mischief is the thing, for the prevention of which our laws have made it a capital offence. In these gross and atrocious injuries the private wrong is swallowed up in the public: we seldom hear any mention made of satisfaction to the indivi dual; the satisfaction to the community being so very great. And indeed, as the public crime is not otherwise avenged than by forfeiture of life and property, it is impossible afterwards to make any reparation for the private wrong; which can only be had from the body or goods of the aggressor. But there are crimes of an inferior nature, in which the public punishment is not so severe, but it affords room for a private compensation also: and herein the distinction of crimes from civil injuries is very apparent. For instance; in the case of battery, or beating another, the aggressor may be indicted for this at the suit of the king, for disturbing the public peace, and be punished criminally by fine and imprisonment: and the party beaten may also have his private remedy by action of trespass for the injury which he in particular sustains, and recover a civil satisfaction in damages. So also, in case of a public nuisance, as digging a ditch across a highway, this is punishable by indictment, as a common offence to the whole kingdom and all his majesty's subjects: but if any individual sustains any special damage thereby, as laming his horse, breaking his carriage, or the like, the offender may be compelled to make ample satisfaction, as well for the private injury, as for the public wrong. Upon the whole we may observe that in taking cognizance of all wrongs, or unlawful acts, the law has a double view: viz. not only to redress the party injured, by either restoring to him his right, if possible; or by giving him an equivalent; the manner of doing which was the object of our enquiries in the preceding book of these commentaries; but also to secure to the public the benefit of society, by preventing or punishing every breach and violation of those laws, which the sovereign power has thought proper to establish for the government and tranquillity of the whole. What those breaches are, and how prevented or punished, are to be considered in the present book. II. The nature of crimes and misdemesnors in general being thus ascertained and distinguished, I proceed, in the next place, to consider the general nature of punishments: which are evils or inconveniences consequent upon crimes and misdemesnors; being devised, denounced, and inflicted by human laws, in consequence of disobedience or misbehaviour in those, to regulate whose conduct such laws were respectively made. And herein we will briefly consider the power, the end, and the measure of human punishment. 1. As to the power of human punishment, or the right of the temporal legislator to inflict discretionary penalties for crimes and misdemesnors. It is clear, that the right of punishing crimes against the law of nature, as murder and the like, is in a state of mere nature vested in every individual. For it must be vested in somebody; otherwise the laws of nature would be vain and fruitless, if none were empowered to put them in execution: and if that power is vested in any one, it must also be vested in all mankind; since all are by nature equal. Whereof the first murderer Cain was so sensible, that we find him i expressing his apprehensions, that whoever should find him would slay him. In a state of society this right is transferred from individuals to the sovereign power; whereby men are prevented from being judges in their own causes, which is one of the evils that civil government was intended to remedy. Whatever power therefore individuals had of punishing offences against the law of nature, that is now vested in the magistrate alone; who bears the sword of justice by the consent of the whole community. And to this precedent natural power of individuals must be referred that right, which some have argued to belong to every state, though, in fact, never exercised by any, of punishing not only their own subjects, but also foreign ambassadors, even with death itself; in case they have offended, not indeed against the municipal laws of the country, but against the divine laws of nature, and become liable thereby to forfeit their lives for their guilt. k As to offences merely against the laws of society, which are only mala prohibita, and not mala in se; the temporal magistrate is also empowered to inflict coërcive penalties for such transgressions: and this by the consent of individuals; who, in forming societies, did either tacitly or expressly invest the sovereign power with the right of making laws, and of enforcing obedience to them when made, h See Grotins, de j. b. & p. 1.2. c. 20. Puffendorf, L. of Nat. & N. b. 8. c. 3. i Gen. iv. 14. |