The phrase "imposes punishment" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used in contexts where someone or something enforces a penalty or consequence for a wrongdoing.
Example: "The judge imposes punishment on those found guilty of the crime."
Alternatives: "administers punishment" or "levies a penalty."
The government is working hard to make sure that when the court imposes punishment on the men tomorrow, no punishment is meted out, in return, by terrorists on the court.
The Constitution's Ex Post Facto Clause prohibits new punishments for old crimes, so the question in the Alaska case, Smith v. Doe, No. 01-729, is whether the state's Sex Offender Registration Act imposes punishment.
And one of the answers is to punish the cheats.However, imposing punishment, too, is costly often, it seems, more costly than an individual's own interests could justify.
"I ask that you impose punishment measured with a degree of mercy".
In civil contempt proceedings, a court may not impose punishment if it is clear that the individual is unable to comply with the order.
But Mr. Ravi, who dropped out of Rutgers, was not charged with causing Mr. Clementi's death, and Judge Berman's job was to impose punishment that fit the crime.
The Alaska law is typical, and the court's ruling that it does not impose punishment is highly likely to foreclose the argument now being raised in a New Jersey case that the laws operate as a form of double jeopardy.
For the first time, the administration has publicly declared, as it did in the case of Iraq, that if the Security Council fails to act, Mr. Bush will organize "like-minded nations" to begin to impose punishment.
A television editorialist on LCI, France's 24-hour news station, said the speech belonged to "a sheriff convinced of his right to regulate the planet and impose punishment as he sees fit".
The statue does not impose punishment but is "a regulatory law intended to help protect the public from future harm by collecting truthful information and making it available to those who choose to access it," Alaska argues in its brief.
"The impermissibility of imposing punishment for that purpose is not avoided simply because Mrs. Bennett stood her ground and refused to accept the sentencing judge's offer not to enhance her husband's sentence if she capitulated," the opinion said.
