The death penalty

Every man in the state of nature, has a power to kill a murderer, both to deter others from doing the like injury, which no reparation can compensate, by the example of the punishment that attends it from every body, and also to secure men from the attempts of a...

Punishment

Penalties should be set by law, not by judges Let mercy be the character of the law-giver, but let the judge be a mere machine. The mercies of the law will be dispensed equally and impartially to every description of men; those of the judge, or of the executive power,...

Intent

It is contrary to justice to allow someone to murder simply because they forgot to take their medication. That is called getting away with murder. Consider this report from the New York Times: Lawyers for a schizophrenic man accused of pushing a woman to her death in...

Self-defense

A man with a sword in his hand demands my purse in the highway, when perhaps I have not 12’d. in my pocket; this man I may lawfully kill. To another I deliver 100l. to hold only whilst I alight, which he refuses to restore me, when I am got up again, but draws his...

The criminal law must be moral

No society can exist unless the laws are respected to a certain degree. The safest way to make laws respected is to make them respectable. When law and morality contradict each other, the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his...