“When there is not enough religion in the pulpit to organize a crusade against sin; nor justice in the court house to promptly punish crime; nor manhood enough in the nation to put a sheltering arm about innocence and virtue----if it needs lynching to protect woman's dearest possession from the ravening human beasts----then I say lynch, a thousand times a week if necessary.”

When The Prisoner had an inconclusive ending
Daily Mail, 15th January 2009 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1116243/How-star-stage-Patrick-McGoohan-Prisoner-success-switching-screen.html

As quoted in " Term mob lynching comes from Bible, says Mohan Bhagwat https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/lynchings-being-used-to-defame-india-hindus-rss-chief-mohan-bhagwat-1607257-2019-10-08" Indiatoday (October 8, 2019)
2015-present

[Mark, Tran, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/12/iceland-haven-freedom-speech-wikileaks?KeepThis=true&TB_iframe=true&height=600&width=990, Iceland plans future as global haven for freedom of speech, The Guardian, February 12, 2010, 2010-06-17]

Introduction, pp. 2-3
The Servile Mind: How Democracy Erodes the Moral Life
Context: Our rulers are theoretically 'our' representatives, but they are busy turning us into the instruments of the projects they keep dreaming up. The business of governments, one might think, is to supply the framework of law within which we may pursue happiness on our own account. Instead, we are constantly being summoned to reform ourselves. Debt, intemperance, and incompetence in rearing our children are no doubt regrettable, but they are vices, and left alone, they will soon lead to the pain that corrects. Life is a better teacher of virtue than politicians, and most sensible governments in the past left moral faults to the churches. But democratic citizenship in the twenty-first century means receiving a stream of improving 'messages' from politicians. Some may forgive these intrusions because they are so well intentioned. Who would defend prejudice, debt, or excessive drinking? The point, however, is that our rulers have no business telling us how to live. They are tiresome enough in their exercise of authority -- they are intolerable when they mount the pulpit. Nor should we be in any doubt that nationalizing the moral life is the first step towards totalitarianism.

Epilogue.
Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963)

Section V, p. 13
Natural Law; or The Science of Justice (1882), Chapter II. The Science of Justice (Continued)

1770s, Boston Massacre trial (1770)
Context: It is more important that innocence be protected than it is that guilt be punished, for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world that they cannot all be punished.
But if innocence itself is brought to the bar and condemned, perhaps to die, then the citizen will say, "whether I do good or whether I do evil is immaterial, for innocence itself is no protection," and if such an idea as that were to take hold in the mind of the citizen that would be the end of security whatsoever.