JB/107/202/001

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27 Jan 1809
Evid Prosp. View P 2

Paley? Reason for English practice cases meet for capital punishment depend on circumstances impossible to be defined till after the offence has been committed

"The better of which two methods (continues the Reverend
Doctor) "has been long adopted in this country, where, of those
"who receive sentence of death scarcely one in ten is executed
Thus in this practice Such is the statement given of the practice:
and worse, under the notice of an indication of the
by which the conduct of the authors creators and preservers of this state of
things may have been determined, comes a justification of
it

"And the preference of this to the former method (as if there
"were no other) seems to be founded on the consideration, that
"the selection of proper subjects for capital punishment principally
"depends upon circumstances, about, however easy to perceive
"in each particular case after the crime is committed, it
"is impossible to enumerate or define beforehand; in to
"ascertain however with that exactness which is requisite
in legal description."

Thus for our man the Reverend Doctor.
"The propriety of a inflicting mode of punishment he depends
depending depends principally
to upon circumstances which it is impossible to
"enumerate or define beforehand! or at any rate at least to ascertain
"with that exactness which is requisite in legal descriptions!
This is as much as to say that it is impossible for the business
of punishment to be carried or had by powers compleatly arbitrary.
The circumstances in which the propriety of a lot of punishment which has
been inflicted depends — impossible to enumerate and or define
beforehand! and yet there some circumstance easy to
perceive after the crime has has been is committed! A Nero or
a Caligula, if it were an object with them to find a justification
for their barbarities, could thus would it be possible for them to dwell
as
or wish for a theory that should set them more compleatly at their ease?

3 By the help of this doctrine, which supposes that In the administration of penal law, it is necessary Judges should be invested with arbitrary power the atrocities of Nero & Caligula or any other atrocities may find their justification

Identifier: | JB/107/202/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 107.
Date_1	1809-01-29	Marginal Summary Numbering	2-3
Box	107	Main Headings	law versus arbitrary power (a hatchet for dr paley's net)
Folio number	202	Info in main headings field
Image	001	Titles
Category	text sheet	Number of Pages	1
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	c2
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks
Marginals	pr1	Paper Producer
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year
Notes public		ID Number	35193
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