People v. Most

When the men framed the Penal Code of the State of New York, they undertook to specify all the crimes known to the law, to state their character, whether felonies or misdemeanors, and provide a penalty in each class of crimes by naming a minimum and maximum penalty in most cases. Tlie attempt to thus codify the criminal law was declared by many able jurists an impossible undertaking. It was argued that the system of laws called the common law was the accumulated wisdom of ages, that it was flexible and able to adapt itself to every new manifestation of crime that might appear, keeping within…