The dangerous
classes attend to the sentences of the judges, and still more to
the execution of those sentences, than to the articles of a code.
In this connection I cannot agree with the forecast of Garofalo as
to the perilous effect of the abolition of capital punishment in
Italy on the imagination of the people; for he was well aware
that, though it is defined in various articles of the old code,
and in about sixty sentences every year, the punishment of death
has not been carried out, which is the essential point, for the
last fifteen years.
The elements which determine the greater or less severity of
judicial repression are of two kinds:--
1. The ratio of persons acquitted to the total number of
prisoners put on their trial.
2. The ratio of the severest punishments to the total number of
prisoners condemned.
Certainly the proportion of acquittals ought not to indicate a
difference in the severity of repression as such, for condemnation
or acquittal ought to point merely to the certainty or otherwise
of guilt, the sufficiency or insufficiency of the evidence. But,
as a matter of fact, the proportional increase of convictions does
partly represent greater severity on the part of the judges, and
still more of the juries, who display it by attaching weight to
somewhat unconvincing evidence, or in too readily admitting
circumstances which tend to aggravate the offence.
Pages:
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143