Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1885-10-19
STATUTORY CRIMES.

The distinctions which men make are
wonderful. In no place is this wonder
seen more often than in Utah. In the
case of the United States VS.. Aurelius
Miner, which came up in the Third Dis
trict Court on Saturday, Mr.. Miner
made some of these distinctions. He
expounded the Constitution in the same
manner with which all are SO familiar in
Utah The rule for determining what is
constitutional and what is unconstitutional
in Utah is to choose what one likes and
to reject what one dislikes in the Consti-
tuition, that which is liked being con-
stitutional, and that which is disliked
being unconstitutional But to return to
Mr.. Miners distinctions. He had been
expounding the Constitution, when the
Court interposed and asked him:
is it not wrong for one man to kill
another?
Mr.. Miner-Yes, your Honor.
Court-Is not that immoral?
Miner-Yes, but not more so because
the law pronounces the act criminal.
Court-That is enacting the moral law
into the municipal law, is it not?
Miner-Yes, nothing else; as one great
founder and commentator of the law
says
Court-The criminal law is nothing
than that, is it?
Miner-Yes, sir; that which is mGlum
IN Sc and that which is NAHUM pro-
hibitU1l.'
What crimes are nahum IN Sc? Merely
those crimes which are mentioned in the
Decalogue. What crimes are nahum pro
hibitum? Crimes which are not mentioned
in the Decalogue, but are prohibited by the
law OF particular country. The crimes
Of the Decalogue are no more, no less
than the maluaa probibitUn1 OF the Mosaic
law. These crimes become adlum IN Sc
from the reverence which the Christian
world gives to the laws of Moses as being
the laws of God and based upon the princ-
pies of eternal justice. The crime of one
age may not be the crime of another, and
Vjce eerSG. Whether crimes are things
of essence or of convention it is impossi-
BILE to determine, but so far as the
municipal law of any country is con-
cerned, they are things of convention.
1t is very doubtful whether Pope was far
wrong when he said that whatever is is
right, F" and that saying was the doctrine
of Horne Tooke as elaborated in the
Diversions OF Purley''
Mr.. Miners distinction between crimes
in themselves and things declared crimes
rests upon belief, and nothing more. If
the crimes of the Decalogue are the only
crimes, then these crimes should be pun
ished in accordance with the provisions
OF the Mosaic law, for the measure of
their punishment comes from the same
source that the declaration of the crime
does. Why NAHUM prohibitune of
Hebrew lawgiver should be any more a
crime per Sc than a NAHUM prohibittn of
the United States is difficult to under
stand. Crimes are but the infraction of
the rules of society, be that society large
or small, civilized or uncivilized,
Christian or pagan, and are pun
ished in accordance with the
opinion ofssociety as to the harm and in
jury done to it through violation of the
rules (the laws) established for its gov
ernment. In the United States these
rules must conform to the fundamental
rule for the guidance of the whole coun-
try, which rule in the Constitution. Mr.
Miner assumed to say whether rule
made in pursuance of the power granted
in the Constitution was in harmony with |
that instrument or not, and because the |
wrong which is forbidden by this rule of
Congress is not forbidden in the laws of
Moses, he declared it was unconstitution-
al. To determine whether or not the |
n'dtum prohibition of Moses is naaluns an |
Sc MIR. Miner goes to the .foro conscientia,
very good place, but one not competent
to determine the constitutionality or un-
constitutianality of law of Congress.
The statutory crimes of the American |
Congress are as much crimes as the pro- |
hlblted acts of the Decalogue And then
the laws of Moses are ultra Uires.