But the
number of the accomplices (correi) in such a deed might happen to be
so great that the state, in resolving to be without such criminals,
would be in danger of soon also being deprived of subjects. But it
will not thus dissolve itself, neither must it return to the much
worse condition of nature, in which there would be no external
justice. Nor, above all, should it deaden the sensibilities of the
people by the spectacle of justice being exhibited in the mere carnage
of a slaughtering bench. In such circumstances the sovereign must
always be allowed to have it in his power to take the part of the
judge upon himself as a case of necessity- and to deliver a
judgement which, instead of the penalty of death, shall assign some
other punishment to the criminals and thereby preserve a multitude
of the people. The penalty of deportation is relevant in this
connection. Such a form of judgement cannot be carried out according
to a public law, but only by an authoritative act of the royal
prerogative, and it may only be applied as an act of grace in
individual cases.
Against these doctrines, the Marquis Beccaria has given forth a
different view. Moved by the compassionate sentimentality of a
humane feeling, he has asserted that all capital punishment is wrong
in itself and unjust.
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