Quote

No man can be judged a criminal until he is found guilty; nor can society take from him the public protection until it has been proved that he has violated the conditions on which it was granted. What right, then, but that of power, can authorize the punishment of a citizen so long as there remains any doubt of his guilt?

— Cesare Beccaria

Sentiment: NEGATIVE

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✓Similar Perspectives

No one politician should be allowed to judge the guilt, to charge an individual, to judge the guilt of an individual and to execute an individual.

— Rand Paul

In order that punishment should not be an act of violence perpetrated by one or many upon a private citizen, it is essential that it should be public, speedy, necessary, the minimum possible in the given circumstances, proportionate to the crime, and determined by the law.

— Cesare Beccaria

Let the punishments of criminals be useful. A hanged man is good for nothing; a man condemned to public works still serves the country, and is a living lesson.

— Voltaire

The right of the judge to inflict punishment gives him both power and opportunity to oppress the innocent; yet none but crazy men will from thence determine that it is best to have neither a legislature nor judges.

— Oliver Ellsworth

In law a man is guilty when he violates the rights of others. In ethics he is guilty if he only thinks of doing so.

— Immanuel Kant

I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

— Martin Luther King, Jr.

Stripped of ethical rationalizations and philosophical pretensions, a crime is anything that a group in power chooses to prohibit.

— Freda Adler

✗Opposing Perspectives

The right to justice is something that no one can bestow, nor take away, for it is in one's heart.

— Bryant H. McGill

The laws only can determine the punishment of crimes, and the authority of making penal laws can only reside with the legislator, who represents the whole society united by the social compact.

— Cesare Beccaria

Only the man who has enough good in him to feel the justice of the penalty can be punished.

— William Ernest Hocking