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CERTAINTY. Construction of the [Definitions] Indictments.
Correspondent to the care of expressing with certainty of precision every circumstance th that
is of the essence concurs in the making up of an offence, is ought to be that of not requiring certainty or precision in circumstances such
that are foreign to its' essence as are foreign to it. Every unnecesssary specification required is an
unnecessary inlet to evasion & , an useless burthen to the memory & attention, & an
useless violation of that simplicity which is the best ornament of a Law the Laws.
[In the smae view, where Guilt follows with equal certainty from either branch of an
alternative, the it offence </dele> ought to be permitted to putthe charge [the offence ]in the alternative,
without contacting the party prosecuting to make his option, & this where the Guilt
shall be certain leaving no more than an even chnace for conviction.
The disjunctive form of allegation censured by Lawyers as virtuous, is so in reality only
in those cases the case where Guilt being is being the consequence only of one branch of the alternative [&]
innocent {of] the other. is consequent upon or consistent withthe other . - But if guiltiness follows equally from either branch of the
disjuncton which ever be the true, the objection that can be made to these either
of fundation, or have a special foundation of a particular kind, which will be considered personally
They have perceived this, & sensible of the inconvenience of restricted to one
of a disjunctive charge,they have invented a round about method in mnay cases of
doing that in a multitude of words <add> agreeable to the of the profession & by a surp confined apparatus, which might better be
done in a few words & without that apparatus.
The Reader who is at all initiated in legal Forms will has already perceive ed that it is the
practice of contrivance I allude to is that of heaping together in the smae Instrument under the name na
"Counts" a number of distinct & factsrepresented as coexisting conjunctively subsis subsisting which [in truth
(and so appear to be) exclusive of each other] in point of fact are not & of
cannot be in point of possibility.
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Identifier: | JB/050/133/001"JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 50. |
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133 |
[[info_in_main_headings_field::certainty. construction of the [definitions] indictments]] |
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jeremy bentham |
[[watermarks::j honig & zoonen [lion with vryheyt motif]]] |
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