punishment

a criminal conviction and not simply the imposition of sen- tence." Ball v. United States, 470 U. S. 856, 861 (1985).

In criminal law. Some pain or penalty warranted by law, inflicted on a person for the commission of a crime or misdemeanor, or for the omission of the performance of an act required by law, by the judgment and command of some lawful court. Punishments are. either corporal or not corporal. The former are: Death, which is usually denominated "capital punishment;" imprisonment, which is either with or without labor (see "Penitentiary"); whipping, in some states; and banishment. The punishments which are not corporal are: Pines, forfeitures; suspension or deprivation of some political or civil right; deprivation of office, and being rendered incapable to hold office; compulsion to remove nuisances.

In Criminal Law. Some pain or penalty warranted by law, inflicted on a person for the commission of a crime or misdemeanor, or for the omission of the performance of an act required by law, by the judgment and command of some lawful court The penalty for the transgression of the law. Whart.; People v. Court of Sessions, 8 N. Y. Crim. R. 355. “The infliction of pain in vengeance of crime.” Dr. Johnson. The right of society to punish is derived, by Beccaria, Mably, and some others, from a supposed agreement which the persons who composed the primitive societies entered into, in order to keep order, and, indeed, the very existence of the state. According to others, it is the interest and duty of man to live in society; to defend his right, society may exert this principle, in order to support itself; and this it may do whenever the acts punishable would endanger the safety of the whole. And Bentham is of opinion that the foundation of this right is laid in public utility or necessity. Delinquents are public enemies, and they must be disarmed and prevented from doing evil, or society would be destroyed. But, if the social compact has never existed, says Livingston, its end must have been the preservation of the natural rights of the members; and therefore the effects of this fiction are the same with those of the theory which takes abstract justice as the foundation of the right to punish; for this justice, if well considered, is that which assures to each member of the state the free exercise of his rights. And if it should be found that utility, the last source from which the right to punish is derived, is so intimately united to tem founded on one of these principles must be supported by the other. The proper end of human punishment is not the satisfaction of justice, but the prevention of crime; Paley. The end of punishment, therefore, is neither to torment sensible beings nor undo a crime already committed, nor yet recall the past, nor reverse the crime. It Is to punish the criminal for doing some injury to society; to repair the wrong done to society or to a private individual, and to amend his life for the future, and by his example to prevent others from committing like offences. The chief end of punishment is by punishing the crime and preventing the doing of it again; and that by means of fines, imprisonment, hard labor, moral and physical treatment, and new habits formed. The infliction of pain for its own sake is now condemned by all enlightened governments, statesmen, and philanthropists; 10 L. Mag. & Rev. 99. The main objects of penal justice are laid down by Bentham: example, reformation, Incapacitation, satisfaction for the person injured, economy to the public. He further says that all our forms of ptinishment should be put to these five tests and should be subjected most especially to all except the last. To attain their social end, punishments should be exemplary, or capable of intimidating those who might be tempted to imitate the guilty; reformatory, or such as should improve the condition of the convicts; personal, or such as are at least calculated to wound the feelings or affect the rights of the relations of the guilty; divisible, or capable of being graduated and proportioned to the offence and the circumstances of each case; reparable, on account of the fallibility of human justice. Punishments are either corporal or not corporal. The former are — death, which is usually denominated capital punishment; Iini>risonment, which is either with or without labor, see Penitentiary; whipping, in some states; and banishment. The punishments which are dot corporal are — fines, forfeitures; suspension or deprivation of some political or civil right; deprivation of office, and being rendered incapable to hold office; compulsion to remove nuisances. The object of punishment is to reform the offender, to deter him and others from committing like offences, and to protect society. See 4 Bla. Com. 7; Whart. Cr. L. 3, 4, 7; Rutherforth, Inst. b. 1, c. 18. A state may provide for a severer punishment for a second than for a first offence, provided it is dealt out to all alike; Moore v. Missouri, 159 U. S. 673, 16 Sup. Ct. 179, 40 L. Ed. 301. The constitution of the United States, Amendments, art. 8, forbids the infliction eral courts; James v. Com., 12 S. & R. (Pa.) 220; Barker v. People, 3 Cow. (N. Y.) 686, 15 Am. Dec. 322; and does not apply to the states; O’Neil v. Vermont, 144 U. S. 323, 12 Sup. Ct. 603, 36 L. Ed. 450 (Field, Harlan, and Brewer, JJ., dissenting). Punishments are cruel when they involve torture or a lingering death; but the punishment of death is not cruel, within the meaning of that word as used in the federal constitution; In re Kemmler, 136 U. S. 436, 10 Sup. Ct 930, 34 L. Ed. 519. A state statute which provides for the punishment of death by electricity, and which is held by the state courts not to inflict a cruel and unusual punishment, does not abridge the privileges or immunities of a convict under the federal constitution; Mc Elvaine v. Brush, 142 U. S. 155, 12 Sup. Ct. 156, 35 L. Ed. 971. What punishment is suited to a specified offence must in general be determined by the legislature, and the case must be very extraordinary in which its judgment could be brought in question. A punishment may possibly be unlawful because it is so manifestly out of all proportion to the offence as to shock the moral sense with its barbarity, or because it is a punishment long disused for its cruelty until it has become unusual; Cooley, Const. 401. So, for example, is the punishment of depriving a native of China of his hair; 18 Am. L. Reg. 676. Whipping, as a punishment for stealing mules, is not contrary to this provision; Garcia v. Territory, 1 N. M. 415. In New York, where a general law created a crime and fixed the maximum of its punishment, a special statute operating only in localities, or upon particular individuals, whereby, for no perceptible reason, the same identical crime, which consists in the violation of a statute applicable to the whole state, can therein or in those persons be punished with double the severity that it can be elsewhere in the same state, is within the prohibition of section five of article one of the constitution of the state as to “cruel and unusual punishments”; In re Bayard, 61 How. Pr. (N. Y.) 294; State v. Whitaker, 48 La. Ann. 527, 19 South. 457, 35 L. R. A. 562. Sentence for a term not exceeding that prescribed by the statute cannot be regarded as a cruel or unusual punishment; Jackson v. U. S.,*102 Fed. 473, 42 C. C. A. 452. Sterilization by means of vasectomy is not a cruel or unusual punishment; State v. Feilen, 70 Wash. 65, 126 Pac. 75, 41 L. R. A. (N. S.) 418. Requiring one who has embezzled over $500,000 of state funds to pay a fine equal to the amount of the embezzlement or suffer life imprisonment is a cruel and unusual punishment where the accused cannot pay it; State v. Ross, 55 Or. 450, 104 Pac. 596, Capital Punishment; Prisoner; Sentence; Pabdon; Electrocution; Hanging; Cruel and Unusual Punishment; Cumulative Sentences; Vasectomy.

In criminal law. Any pain, penalty, suffering or confinement inflicted upon a person by the authority of the law and the judgment and sentence of a court, for some crime or offense committed by him or for his omission of a duty enjoined by law. See Cummings v. Missouri, 4 Wall. 320, 18 L. Ed. 356; Featherstone v. Pcople, 194 III. 325, 62 N. E. 684; Ex parte Howe, 26 Or. 181, 37 Pac. 536; State v. Grant, 79 Mo. 129, 49 Am. Rep. 2ia

— Cruel and unusual punishment. Such punishment as would amount to torture or barbarity, and any cruel and degrading punishment not known to the common law, and also any punishment so disproportionate to the offense as to shock the moral sense of the community. In re Bayard, 25 Hun (N. Y.) 546; State v. Driver, 78 N. C. 423; In re Kemmler, 136 U. S. 436, 10 Sup. Gt. 930, 34 In Ed. 519; Wilker-son v. Utah, 99 U. S. 130, 25 L. Ed. 345; State v. Williams, 77 Mo. 310; McDonald v. Com., 173 Mass. 322, 53 N. E. 874, 73 Am. St. Rep. 293; People v. Morris, 80 Mich. 638, 45 N. W. 591, 8 In It. A. 685.

crim. law, is some pain or penalty warranted by law, inflicted on a person, for the commission of a crime or misdemeanor, by the judgment and command of some lawful court. Punishments are either corporal or not corporal. The former are imprisonment, which is either with or without labour; vide Penitentiary; whipping, in some states, though 14 to the honour of several of them, it &- is not tolerated in them; banishment, 2a and death. The punishments which are not corporal, are fines; forfei- "'4. tures; suspension or deprivation of ew some political or civil right; deprieS vation of office, and being rendered incapable to hold office; compulsion to remove nuisances. The object of punishment is to reform the offender; to deter him and others from comi mitting like offences; and to protect society. Vide 4 Bl. Com. 7; Rutherf. Inst. B. 1, ch. 18. Punishments to be just ought to be graduated to the enormity of the offence. The constitution of the United States, Amendments, art. 8, forbids the infliction of “cruel and unusual punishments.”’