Nothing New Under the Sun, Here as to Rules That Focus on a Defendant’s Being Motivated by Ill Will
From Thomas Starkie’s 1813 libel law treatise, pp. 199-200 (some paragraph breaks added):
Were every malicious and oppressive act to be considered illegal, the law would be very agreeable to the theorist, but utterly unfit for the practical purposes of society, on account of the infinite perplexity and uncertainty which would occur in distinguishing between bad and good motives, where the act done might arise from either source.
The secret purpose of a man’s heart is of too difficult ascertainment to be made the general criterion of legal right or wrong; and hence it is that the law, which must resort to more plain and certain evidence, on which it may found more precise prescriptions, may not unfrequently become the instrument of oppression.
For example: where a creditor, from motives of malice and revenge, and net with a view to his legal remedy, deprives his debtor of liberty; as a matter of conscience the act is criminal an
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