Crime

"(2) If crime is depicted it shall be as a sordid and unpleasant activity."

"(1) Crimes shall never be presented in such a way as to create sympathy for the criminal, to promote distrust of the forces of law and justice, or to inspire others with a desire to imitate criminals."

"There are few better measures of the concern a society has for its individual members and its own well being than the way it handles criminals."

"La pauvreté met le crime au rabais."

"The poacher … is asserting a right (and an instinct) belonging to a past time—when for hunting purposes all land was held in common. … In those times private property was theft. Obviously the man who attempted to retain for himself land or goods, or who fenced off a portion of the common ground and—like the modern landlord—would allow no one to till it who did not pay him a tax—was a criminal of the deepest dye. Nevertheless the criminals pushed their way to the front, and have become the respectables of modern society."

"Nor all that heralds rake from coffin'd clay, Nor florid prose, nor honied lies of rhyme, Can blazon evil deeds, or consecrate a crime."

"Society already understands that the criminal is not he who washes our dirty linen in public, but he who dirties the linen."

"There's not a crime But takes its proper change out still in crime If once rung on the counter of this world."

"Nothing stops a bullet like a job."

"I have never heard of any youngster going wrong, turning to crime, because of the movies. It simply isn't possible. Our relation to crime is, in a sense, the same as the prison warden's. We don't create it. We deal with it after it has happened, and we always make the criminal look bad. When I went to college, I studied under a professor of geology who wanted to make us understand how the different peoples of the world got the way they are, their racial tendencies and characteristics, dark-skinned Africans and fair-haired Swedes. He cited geography and climate and food and opportunities, and he summed it all up with the phrase: "We are what we are largely because we are where we are." The proof of the argument can be found in the Uniform Crime Reports and the Department of Justice. The spot maps of cities show it. Not so long ago, I examined some maps showing juvenile delinquency, diptheria, tuberculosis and murder quotients in a number of cities from New Orleans to Los Angeles. The maps all looked alike. Disease, crime and delinquency were invariably grouped in the same parts of the cities — in the slum districts. That is the cause of crime, not the motion picture."

"Le crime et la folie ont quelque similitude. Voir les prisonniers de la Conciergerie au préau, ou voir des fous dans le jardin d'une maison de santé, c'est une même chose. Les uns et les autres se promènent en s'évitant, se jettent des regards au moins siguliers, atroces, selon leurs pensées du moment, jamais gais ni sérieux ; car ils se connaissent ou ils se craignent. L'attente d'une condamnation, les remords, les anxiétés donnent aux promeneurs du préau l'air inquiet et hagard des fous. Les criminels consommés ont seuls une assurance qui ressemble à la tranquillité d'une vie honnête, à la sincérité d'une conscience pure."

"No mortal thing can bear so high a price, But that with mortal thing it may be bought."

"Auro pulsa fides, auro venalia jura, Aurum lex sequitur, mox sine lege pudor."

"Alas! the small discredit of a bribe Scarce hurts the lawyer, but undoes the scribe."

"Our supple tribes repress their patriot throats, And ask no questions but the price of votes."

"But here more slow, where all are slaves to gold, Where looks are merchandise, and smiles are sold."

"Too poor for a bribe, and too proud to importune, He had not the method of making a fortune."

"A hoarseness caused by swallowing gold and silver."

"Flowery oratory he Walpole] despised. He ascribed to the interested views of themselves or their relatives the declarations of pretended patriots, of whom he said, "All those men have their price.""

"When their lordships asked Bacon How many bribes he had taken He had at least the grace To get very red in the face."

"And ye sail walk in silk attire, And siller hae to spare, Gin ye'll consent to be his bride, Nor think o' Donald mair."

"There is thy gold, worse poison to men's souls, Doing more murders in this loathsome world, Than these poor compounds that thou mayst not sell. I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none."

"What, shall one of us, That struck the foremost man of all this world But for supporting robbers, shall we now Contaminate our fingers with base bribes?"

"There is gold for you. Sell me your good report."

"Tis gold Which buys admittance; oft it doth; yea, and Diana's rangers false themselves, yield up Their deer to the stand o' the stealer: and 'tis gold Which makes the true man kill'd and saves the thief; Nay, sometimes hangs both thief and true man."

"His sons walked not in his ways, but turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment."

"Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold."

"No abuse of power has so tarnished the corporate image or shown the need for government legislation as the numerous public revelations of wholesale political and foreign bribery that came to light during the 1970s. These revelations are one of the most sordid chapters in American corporate history. Investigations revealed widespread illegal corporate political contributions and extensive bribery of foreign government officials. When the bribes were large, they significantly distorted the corporation's actual financial picture, thus misleading company stockholders as well as the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the . When U.S. corporations bribe officials of developing countries, they may help to undermine that country's political stability and in some cases contribute to the spread of anti-American feeling. A particularly serious situation develops when pharmaceutical corporations bribe health officials in other countries to obtain permission to sell dangerous drug products."

"Citizens United v. FEC]] violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it’s just an oligarchy with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or being elected president. And the same thing applies to governors, and U.S. Senators and congress members. So, now we’ve just seen a subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect, and sometimes get, favors for themselves after the election is over... At the present time the incumbents, Democrats and Republicans, look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves. Somebody that is already in Congress has a great deal more to sell, to an avid contributor."

"'Tis pleasant purchasing our fellow-creatures; And all are to be sold, if you consider Their passions, and are dext'rous; some by features Are brought up, others by a warlike leader; Some by a place—as tend their years or natures; The most by ready cash—but all have prices, From crowns to kicks, according to their vices."

"Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder."

"Every man has his price."

"It is abominable to convict a man behind his back."

"A conviction must be good in all its parts; the information must be supported by the evidence, and the judgment must be supported by both."

"He that hath an ill name is half hang'd ye know."

"Nothing could be of worse consequence, than that an officer of the Court should combine with a criminal to frustrate the sentence of the Court."

"Truly I think it one of the most reasonable laws in the world, that a man be tried by his county, by the neighbourhood ; and it has given ground to a good English proverb: "He that has an ill-name, is half hanged."* A man's repute among his neighbours goes a great way in this matter, when his neighbours shall say they never knew ill by him."

"He that doth refuse to put himself upon his legal trial of God and the Country, is a mute in law; and therefore you must plead guilty or not guilty. Let his language be what it will, he is a mute in law."

"The law is plain, that you are positively to answer, guilty, or not guilty, which you please."

"You shall have the laws of England, although you refuse to own them in not holding up your hand; for the holding up of the hand hath been used as a part of the law of England these five hundred years."

"I do not approve of indicting, where there is another remedy: it carries the appearance of oppression."

"Shall we indict one man for making a fool of another?"

"If people with the very best intentions carry on prosecutions that are oppressive, the end may not always perhaps sanctify the means."

"It is to the interest of the public that the suppression of a prosecution should not be made matter of private bargain."

"The duty to prosecute, or not to prosecute, is a social and not a legal duty, which depends on the circumstances of each case. It cannot be said that it is a moral duty to prosecute in all cases. The matter depends on considerations, which vary according to each case. But the person who has to act is bound morally to be influenced by no indirect motive. He is morally bound to bring a fair and honest mind to the consideration and to exercise his decision from a sense of duty to himself and others."

"He who flees judgment confesses his guilt."

"Flight, or an escape from arrest for felony, is an acknowledgment of guilt . . . every man, who is accused, is bound to submit himself to the judgment of the law; and, whether it be a trespass, or whether it be a felony with which he is charged, it may, with truth, be said of him who shrinks from trial—facinus fatetur qui judicium fugit."

"Flight, in criminal cases, is itself a crime. If an innocent man flies for treason or felony, he forfeits all his goods and chattels. Outlawry, in a capital case, is as a conviction for the crime: And many men who never were tried have been executed upon the outlawry."

"Running away from justice, must always be considered an evidence of guilt."

"In a criminal proceeding the question is not alone whether substantial justice has been done, but whether justice has been done according to law. All proceedings in poenam are, it need scarcely be observed, strictissimi juris; nor should it be forgotten that the formalities of law, though here and there they may lead to the escape of an offender, are intended on the whole to insure the safe administration of justice and the protection of innocence, and must be observed. A party accused has the right to insist on them as matter of right, of which he cannot be deprived against his will; and the Judge must see that they are followed."