Word: penal
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...first time in a century, there were no prisoners last week in Cayenne Penal Colony, the equatorial prison long known as "Devil's Island." The last 58 beaten, broken convicts were transferred from the South American swamps to a Paris jail, and with that France brought to an end a prison more infamous than any crime it had ever punished. From the day it was founded in 1854, some 70,000 Frenchmen were sent out to its noisome stockades in expiation of crimes ranging from robbery to murder and high treason. Hardly more than 2,000 ever returned...
...that it "would have been laughed out of court" if it had attempted to indict and try the Rosenbergs under the 1946 law. Douglas insisted, however, that the sentencing procedure of the 1946 law was the only one that could be applied to the case. He said: "Where two penal statutes may apply . . . the court has no choice but to impose the less harsh sentence . . . I know deep in my heart that I am right...
...that Oatis was convicted of violating could be used to send any newsman to jail at the whim of the Reds. Says the Czech law and penal code: "He who attempts to obtain state secrets with the intention of betraying them to a foreign power [is guilty of espionage] . . . By a state secret is meant a fact [of] political, military or economic interest [which] should remain concealed . . . By economic secret is meant everything . . . important for economic enterprise . . . that should be kept secret." In short, Oatis was guilty of espionage if he tried to check the location or output...
...three angels-two of them murderers, the third a swindler-take the visitors on. All three badmen have sunny natures, warm hearts, clever hands, sleepless brains; all three are passionate believers in the robinhood of man. Possessing every criminal art and penal grace, they set matters aright in a Gallic Christmas Carol where it is simpler to bump Scrooge off than to convert...
Nobody can estimate how many sex "crimes" are actually committed, the researchers concluded, because most sexual acts which violate California's penal code are done in private by "mutually consenting" adults. Even when the crime is clearer, as in cases involving children, it is often hushed up. But in recorded court cases, the investigators could find no evidence of a great wave of sex crime, or that "sex fiends" were everywhere on the prowl. Serious sex offenses made up one-tenth of all the criminal cases tried in the superior courts. The fact finders considered the commoner misdemeanors (such...