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Punishment in alienam personam
If the Law were known to be in this behalf as it has been said to be,
the nation would must long ago have been one continued a scene of
lust, cruelty and rapine: but it happens here as it
will sometimes happen in other instances, one mischief
operates as a palliative to another: the extreme
absurdity of the Law is veiled by men's utter
ignorance of it's contents.
Let us reverse the tables Let us turn back & look on the other side.. What then would be Little danger
from the admission
of promiscuous
evidence not
so great as it
seems to be
the mischief danger of admitting the testimony of personsa man
thus stigmatized - I see none: none at least that
can for a moment stand in competition with the
mischief on the other side. The A "But the person so stigmatized
does not deserve to be believed?"- Does
he not? why am I to think so? because you
say so? - No: but because men in general
will say so too? And will they then? - Yes surely
will they. — I do believe so too it, and therefore
it is I say there is no danger. Let him be known
for such what he is, and a Jury will be under the strongest
bias not to believe him. Their prejudice will
bear strong against him: and express nothing butnor will any thing less than
may the strongest degree of probability and the most perfect
consistency in the whole narration [can prevail with will be sufficient
then] to induce them to believe it. The I see not what
it is that should justify the extreme distrust which
Judges have shewn of Juries in establishing this rule:
especially as in case of conviction of per one innocent
person [+] it is so entirely in the power of the Judge to [+] which is the greatest
danger the case
is liable open to
Identifier: | JB/141/147/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 141.
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not numbered |
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141 |
rationale of punishment |
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147 |
punishment in alienam personam |
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001 |
incompetency |
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text sheet |
2 |
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recto |
f60 / f61 |
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jeremy bentham |
l v g |
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caroline vernon |
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48364 |
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