CRIMINAL ATTEMPTS, ACCOMPLICES, IMPUNITY.
It does not follow, because the laws do not punish intentions, that
therefore a crime begun by some action, significative of the will to
complete it, is undeserving of punishment, although it deserves less than
a crime actually committed. The importance of preventing an attempt at a
crime justifies a punishment; but, as there may be an interval between
the attempt and the execution, the reservation of a greater punishment
for a consummated crime may present a motive for its non-completion.
The same may be said, though for a different reason, where there
are several accomplices of a crime, not all of them its immediate
perpetrators. When several men join together in an undertaking, the
greater its risk is, the more will they seek to make it equal for all
of them; the more difficult it will be, therefore, to find one of them
who will be willing to put the deed into execution, if he thereby incurs
a greater risk than that incurred by his accomplices. The only exception
would be where the perpetrator received a fixed reward, for then, the
perpetrator having a compensation for his greater risk, the punishment
should be equalised between him and his accomplices. Such reflections may
appear too metaphysical to whosoever does not consider that it is of the
utmost advantage for the laws to afford as few grounds of agreement as
possible between companions in crime.
Some courts promise impunity to an accomplice in a serious crime who will
expose his companions, an expedient that has its drawbacks as well as its
advantages. Among the former must be counted the national authorisation
of treachery, a practice which even criminals detest; for crimes of
courage are less pernicious to a people than crimes of cowardice, courage
being no ordinary quality, and needing only a beneficent directing force
to make it conduce to the public welfare, whilst cowardice is more
common and contagious, and always more self-concentrated than the other.
Besides, a tribunal which calls for the aid of the law-breaker proclaims
its own uncertainty and the weakness of the laws themselves. On the other
hand, the advantages of the practice are, the prevention of crimes and
the intimidation of the people, owing to the fact that the results are
visible whilst the authors remain hidden; moreover, it helps to show that
a man who breaks his faith to the laws, that is, to the public, is likely
also to break it in private life. I think that a general law promising
impunity to an accomplice who exposes a crime would be preferable to
a special declaration in a particular case, because in this way the
mutual fear which each accomplice would have of his own risk would tend
to prevent their association; the tribunal would not make criminals
audacious by showing that their aid was called for in a particular case.
Such a law, however, should accompany impunity with the banishment of
the informer.… But to no purpose do I torment myself to dissipate the
remorse I feel in authorising the inviolable laws, the monument of
public confidence, the basis of human morality, to resort to treachery
and dissimulation. What an example to the nation it would be, were the
promised impunity not observed, and were the man who had responded to
the invitation of the laws dragged by learned quibbles to punishment, in
spite of the public troth pledged to him! Such examples are not rare in
different countries; neither, therefore, is the number small, of those
who consider a nation in no other light than in that of a complicated
machine, whose springs the cleverest and the strongest move at their
will. Cold and insensible to all that forms the delight of tender and
sensitive minds, they arouse, with imperturbable sagacity, either the
softest feelings or the strongest passions, as soon as they see them of
service to the object they have in view, handling men’s minds just as
musicians do their instruments.