  Few deny that one function of criminal law is to deliver justified punishment. Some go further and claim that this is the sole function of criminal law (Moore 1997, 28–29). Call this the punitive view. Rules of criminal procedure and evidence, on this view, help facilitate the imposition of justified punishment, while keeping the risk of unjustified punishment within acceptable bounds. Rules of substantive criminal law help give potential offenders fair warning that they may be punished. Both sets of rules combat objections we might otherwise make to laws that authorize the intentional imposition of harm. To combat objections, of course, is not itself to make a positive case for such laws. That case, on the punitive view, is made by the justified punishments that criminal courts impose. This is not to say anything about what the justification of punishment is. It is merely to say that criminal law is to be justified in punitive terms.