Principle of Legality
An overarching concept in American criminal law is that people may not be punished for committing merely immoral or unethical acts. They can only be punished if that act has been announced beforehand as a crime.
Read more about this topic: United States Criminal Law
Famous quotes containing the words principle of and/or principle:
“The world is not dialectical—it is sworn to extremes, not to equilibrium, sworn to radical antagonism, not to reconciliation or synthesis. This is also the principle of evil.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“I ... observed the great beauty of American government to be, that the simple machines of representation, carried through all its parts, gives facility for a being moulded at will to fit with the knowledge of the age; that thus, although it should be imperfect in any or all of its parts, it bears within it a perfect principle the principle of improvement.
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—Frances Wright (1795–1852)