mispunish

English

Etymology

mis- +‎ punish

Verb

mispunish (third-person singular simple present mispunishes, present participle mispunishing, simple past and past participle mispunished)

1. To punish inappropriately; to give the wrong amount or type of punishment, or to punish someone for an offense they did not commit.
   • 1993, United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee on Courts and Administrative Practice, The Multiparty, Multiforum Jurisdiction Act of 1991, page 236:

     Multiple punitive damages are likely to mispunish defendants.

   • 1998, N. Scott Arnold, “Affirmative Action and the Demands of Justice”, in Ellen Frankel Paul, Fred D. Miller, Jr, Jeffrey Paul, editors, Problems of Market Liberalism, volume 15, page 145:

     Some people do not correctly apply the natural law, or they tend to be biased when judging in their own cases, or they tend to mispunish, overpunish, etc.

   • 2004, Stefan Braun, Democracy Off Balance, page 109:

     Ordinarily, hate censorship theorists would be the first to distrust a law that could so mispunish – but this is not the case when it comes to hate speech law.

   • 2017, Edward P. Stringham, Anarchy and the Law: The Political Economy of Choice:

     But what is a guilty person's complaint against an unreliable procedure? That it is too likely to mispunish him?