JB/067/025/002

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EXEMPTIONS. DRUNKENNESS.

I shall leave it to the Author of the Commentaries, to prove out of Ld Coke, that
Drunkenness ought not to be an exemption, because a Drunkard is "a voluntary Devil."

Nor shall I spend much time in considering the Law of Pittacus, who ordered
that a man who committed a crime under such a state of mind should be punished twice as much as for the crime alone: a thing not,
very easy practicable to be done where the crime of itself was capital upon a man who had the
more lives than his neighbours number of lives we ordinarily see allotted to one person.

I leave therefore this Jeu d'esprit of the Grecian Legislator, which who certainly did
not weigh the J right a wrong in this instance in very accurate Scales, I content myself with
giving 3 reasons why if it is not necessary to punish drunkenness as murder or incend
after a man has born respectively all the proper punishments for those two crimes, it would might be highly misc
however to suffer admitt it to privilege a man from the regular punishment penalty and as much as it would ca
If aught in a great degree to weaken the preventive efficiency of Punishment⊞ ⊞ in the instance of instances where it might be received.

One is, that if this were to be allowed for an exemption, and it is an appearance a state of mind not very by means
difficult to be counterfeited, a good actor might often contrive to make such when as happen to be
to a criminal transaction believe, & from through them to make the Jury believe bona fide
that he was in such a state of mind when engaged in it, when he in truth he was not.
Another is, that the Plea of it might be apt to punish those who are pronounced as determined judge (the Jury in our
Law) with a decent pretence of consulting their affections or some worse principle against
their judgement of the truth of it; especially if in other crimes they should take a lesson from their
own practise in Suicide, & from in part the existence of the exemption from the very existence of the crime.

2dly The last is Because of one it were well understood that intoxication were to be an exemption a
person intending to do any sort of mischief, to make sure would always take care to be drunk, in order that he may
appear to be so.

If there be any Reader who is not satisfied with that these† † he may go to Puttendorf, he may find one that he may
like him better in the observation of Ld Ed Coke "that a Drunkard is voluntarily
a voluntary devil" gravely noted by the Author of the Commentaries.

Limits.

As the existence or non-existence of it neither actually does, nor according to my idea of
ought in any case to make a difference it is not worth while to be it much
pains in marking out the limits or the within which if at all it might be admitted to
obtain. They are much the same with those of Insanity.

Identifier: | JB/067/025/002 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 67.
Date_1		Marginal Summary Numbering
Box	067	Main Headings	law in general
Folio number	025	Info in main headings field	exemptions drunkenness
Image	002	Titles	book i / offences in general / exemptions / drunkenness
Category	text sheet	Number of Pages	2
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks	[[watermarks::[gr with crown] [britannia with shield motif]]]
Marginals		Paper Producer
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year
Notes public		ID Number	21858
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