"IV. A fine is reduced to one-half.
"V. If the penalty would be a restriction of personal liberty, the judge
may order the prisoner to a workhouse, until the proper authorities
object, when the remainder of the sentence is carried out in the usual
manner."
It is true that there is now and then in those halls of justice, which
remain all too frequently closed to the living wave of public sentiment,
some more intelligent and serene judge who is touched by this painful
understanding of the actual human life. Then he may, under the illogical
conditions of penal justice, with its compromise between the exactness
of the classic and that of the positive school of criminology, seek for
some expedient which may restore him to equanimity.
In 1832, France introduced a penal innovation, which seemed to represent
an advance on the field of justice, but which is in reality a denial of
justice: The expedient of _extenuating circumstances_. The judge does
not ask for the advice of the court physician in the case of some
forlorn criminal, but condemns him without a word of rebuke to society
for its complicity. But in order to assuage his own conscience he grants
him extenuating circumstances, which seem a concession of justice, but
are, in reality, a denial of justice. For you either believe that a man
is responsible for his crime, and in that case the concession of
extenuating circumstances is a hypocrisy; or you grant them in good
faith, and then you admit that the man was in circumstances which
reduced his moral responsibility, and thereby the extenuating
circumstances become a denial of justice.
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