—¿Por qué lees tanto? —(…) Mi mejor arma está en el cerebro. Mi hermano tiene su espada; el rey Robert tiene su maza, y yo tengo mi mente… Pero una mente necesita de los libros, igual que una espada de una piedra de amolar, para conservar el filo. —(…)—. Por eso leo tanto, Jon Snow.

TYRION LANNISTER.

domingo, 25 de diciembre de 2016

BOOK 4, CHAPTER 32 Of Execution

formado por un único campo de gules en que aparecen tres leones pasantes y
contorneados de oro, lampasados y armados o uñados de azur.


THERE now remains nothing to speak of, but execution; the completion of human punishment. And this, in all cases, as well capital as otherwise, must be performed by the legal officer, the sheriff or his deputy; whose warrant for so doing was anciently by precept under the hand and seal of the judge, as it is still practiced in the court of the lord high steward, upon the execution of a peer:1 though, in the court of the peers in parliament, it is done by writ from the king.2 Afterwards it was established,3 that, in case of life, the judge may command execution to be done without any writ. And now the usage is, for the judge to sign the calendar, or list of all the prisoners’ names, with their separate judgments in the margin, which is left with the sheriff. As, for a capital felony, it is written opposite to the prisoner’s name, “hanged by the neck;” formerly, in the days of Latin and abbreviation,4 “sus. per coll.” for “suspendatur per collum.” And this is the only warrant that the sheriff has, for so material an act as taking away the life of another.5 It may certainly afford matter of speculation, that in civil causes there should be such a variety of writs of execution to recover a trifling debt, issued in the king’s name, and under the seal of the court, without which the sheriff cannot legally stir one step; and yet that the execution of a man, the most important and terrible task of any, should depend upon a marginal note.

THE sheriff, upon receipt of his warrant, is to do execution within a convenient time; which in the country is also left at large. In London indeed a more solemn and becoming exactness is used, both as to the warrant of execution, and the time of executing thereof: for the recorder, after reporting to the king in person the case of the several prisoners, and receiving his royal pleasure, that the law must take its course, issues his warrant to the sheriffs; directing them to do execution on the day and at the place assigned.6 And, in the court of king’s bench, if the prisoner be tried at the bar, or brought there by habeas corpus, a rule is made for his execution; either specifying the time and place,7 or leaving it to the discretion of the sheriff.8 And, throughout the kingdom, by statute 25 Geo. II. c. 37. it is enacted that, in case of murder, the judge shall in his sentence direct execution to be performed on the next day but one after sentence passed.9 It has been well observed,10 that it is of great importance, that the punishment should follow the crime as early as possible; that the prospect of gratification or advantage, which tempts a man to commit the crime, should instantly awake the attendant idea of punishment. Delay of execution serves only to separate these ideas; and then the execution itself affects the minds of the spectators rather as a terrible fight, than as the necessary consequence of transgression.

THE sheriff cannot alter the manner of the execution by substituting one death for another, without being guilty of felony himself, as has been formerly said.11 It is held also by Sir Edward Coke12 and Sir Matthew Hale,13 that even the king cannot change the punishment of the law, by altering the hanging or burning into beheading; though, when beheading is part of the sentence, the king may remit the rest. And, notwithstanding some examples to the contrary, Sir Edward Coke stoutly maintains, that “judicandum est legibus, non exemplis.” [“We must judge by the laws, not by examples.”] But others have thought,14 and more justly, that this prerogative, being founded in mercy and immemorially exercised by the crown, is part of the common law. For hitherto, in every instance, all these exchanges have been for more merciful kinds of death; and how far this may also fall within the king’s power of granting conditional pardons, (viz. by remitting a severe kind of death, on condition that the criminal submits to a milder) is a matter that may bear consideration. It is observable, that when lord Stafford was executed for the popish plot in the reign of king Charles the second, the then sheriffs of London, having received the king’s writ for beheading him, petitioned the house of lords, for a command or order from their lordships, how the said judgment should be executed: for, he being prosecuted by impeachment, they entertained a notion (which is said to have been countenanced by lord Russel) that the king could not pardon any part of the sentence.15 The lords resolved,16 that the scruples of the sheriffs were unnecessary, and declared, that the king’s writ ought to be obeyed. Disappointed of raising a flame in that assembly, they immediately signified17 to the house of commons by one of the members, that they were not satisfied as to the power of the said writ. That house took two days to consider of it; and then18 sullenly resolved, that the house was content that the sheriff do execute lord Stafford by severing his head from his body. It is farther related, that when afterwards the same lord Russel was condemned for high treason upon indictment, the king, while he remitted the ignominious part of the sentence, observed, “that his lordship would now find he was possessed of that prerogative, which in the case of lord Stafford he had denied him.”19 One can hardly determine (at this distance from those turbulent times) which most to disapprove of, the indecent and sanguinary zeal of the subject, or the cool and cruel sarcasm of the sovereign.

TO conclude: it is clear, that if, upon judgment to be hanged by the neck till he is dead, the criminal be not thoroughly killed, but revives, the sheriff must hang him again.20 For the former hanging was no execution of the sentence; and, if a false tenderness were to be indulged in such cases, a multitude of collusions might ensue. Nay, even while abjurations were in force,21 such a criminal, so reviving, was not allowed to take sanctuary and abjure the realm; but his fleeing to sanctuary was held an escape in the officer.22

AND, having thus arrived at the last stage of criminal proceedings, or execution, the end and completion of human punishment, which was the sixth and last head to be considered under the division of public wrongs, the fourth and last object of the laws of England; it may now seem high time to put a period to these commentaries, which, the author is very sensible, have already swelled to too great a length. But he cannot dismiss the student, for whose use alone these rudiments were originally compiled, without endeavoring to recall to his memory some principal outlines of the legal constitution of this country; by a short historical review of the most considerable revolutions, that have happened in the laws of England, from the earliest to the present times. And this task he will attempt to discharge, however imperfectly, in the next or concluding chapter.

NOTES

     1.    2 Hawk. P. C. 409.
     2.    See appendix. § 5.
     3.    Finch. L. 478.
     4.    Staundf. P. C. 182.
     5.    5 Mod. 22.
     6.    See appendix, § 4.
     7.    St. Trials. VI. 332. Fost. 43.
     8.    See appendix, § 3.
     9.    See pag. 202.
   10.    Beccar. ch. 19.
   11.    See pag. 179.
   12.    3 Inst. 52.
   13.    2 Hal. P. C. 412,
   14.    Fost. 270.
   15.    2 Hume Hist. of G. B. 328.
   16.    Lords Journ. 21. Dec. 1680.
   17.    Com. Journ. 21 Dec. 1680.
   18.    Ibid. 23 Dec. 1680.
   19.    2 Hume. 360.
   20.    2 Hal. P. C. 412. 2 Hawk. P. C. 463.
   21.    See pag. 326.
   22.    Fitzh. Abr. t. coront. 335. Finch. L. 467.

viernes, 23 de diciembre de 2016

BOOK 4, CHAPTER 31 Of Reprieve, and Pardon

formado por un único campo de gules en que aparecen tres leones pasantes y
contorneados de oro, lampasados y armados o uñados de azur.


THE only other remaining ways of avoiding the execution of the judgment are by a reprieve, or a pardon; whereof the former is temporary only, the latter permanent.

I. A REPRIEVE, from reprendre, to take back, is the withdrawing of a sentence for an interval of time; whereby the execution is suspended. This may be, first, ex arbitrio judicis [in the judge’s discretion]; either before or after judgment: as, where the judge is not satisfied with the verdict, or the evidence is suspicious, or the indictment is insufficient, or he is doubtful whether the offense be within clergy; or sometimes if it be a small felony, or any favorable circumstances appear in the criminal’s character, in order to give room to apply to the crown for either an absolute or conditional pardon. These arbitrary reprieves may be granted or taken off by the justices of jail delivery, although their session be finished, and their commission expired: but this rather by common usage, than of strict right.1

REPRIEVES may also be ex necessitate legis [from legal necessity]: as, where a woman is capitally convicted, and pleads her pregnancy; though this is no cause to stay the judgment, yet it is to respite the execution till she be delivered. This is a mercy dictated by the law of nature, in favorem prolis [in favor of offspring]; and therefore no part of the bloody proceedings, in the reign of queen Mary, has been more justly detested than the cruelty, that was exercised in the island of Guernsey, of burning a woman big with child: and, when through the violence of the flames the infant sprang forth at the stake, and was preserved by the bystanders, after some deliberation of the priests who assisted at the sacrifice, they cast it again into the fire as a young heretic.2 A barbarity which they never learned from the laws of ancient Rome; which direct,3 with the same humanity as our own, “quod praegnantis mulieris damnatae poena differatur, quoad pariat” [“the punishment of a condemned pregnant woman is deferred until delivery”]: which doctrine has also prevailed in England, as early as the first memorials of our law will reach.4 In case this plea be made in stay of execution, the judge must direct a jury of twelve matrons or discreet women to inquire the fact: and if they bring in their verdict quick with child (for barely, with child, unless it be alive in the womb, is not sufficient) execution shall be staid generally till the next session; and so from session to session, till either she is delivered, or proves by the course of nature not to have been with child at all. But if she once has had the benefit of this reprieve, and been delivered, and afterwards becomes pregnant again, she shall not be entitled to the benefit of a farther respite for that cause.5 For she may now be executed before the child is quick in the womb; and shall not, by her own incontinence, evade the sentence of justice.

ANOTHER cause of regular reprieve is, if the offender become non compos, between he judgment and the award of execution:6 for regularly, as was formerly7 observed, though a man be compos when he commits a capital crime, yet if he becomes non compos after, he shall not be indicted; if after indictment, he shall not be convicted; if after conviction, he shall not receive judgment; if after judgment, he shall not be ordered for execution: for “furiosus solo furore punitur” [“madness alone punishes a madman”], and the law knows not but he might have offered some reason, if in his senses, to have stayed these respective proceedings. It is therefore an invariable rule, when any time intervenes between the attainder and the award of execution, to demand of the prisoner what he has to allege, why execution should not be awarded against him: and, if he appears to be insane, the judge in his discretion may and ought to reprieve him. Or, he may plead in bar of execution; which plea may be either pregnancy, the king’s pardon, an act of grace, or diversity of person, viz. that he is not the same that was attainted, and the like. In this last case a jury shall be impaneled to try this collateral issue, namely, the identity of his person; and not whether guilty or innocent; for that has been decided before. And in these collateral issues the trial shall be instanter [instantly],8 and no time allowed the prisoner to make his defense or produce his witnesses, unless he will make oath that he is not the person attainted:9 neither shall any peremptory challenges of the jury be allowed the prisoner;10 though formerly such challenges were held to be allowable, whenever a man’s life was in question.11

II. IF neither pregnancy, insanity, non-identity, nor other plea will avail to avoid the judgment, and stay the execution consequent thereupon, the last and surest resort is in the king’s most gracious pardon; the granting of which is the most amiable prerogative of the crown. Laws (says an able writer) cannot be framed on principles of compassion to guilt: yet justice, by the constitution of England, is bound to be administered in mercy: this is promised by the king in his coronation oath, and it is that act of his government, which is the most personal, and most entirely his own.12 The king himself condemns no man; that rugged task he leaves to his courts of justice: the great operation of his scepter is mercy. His power of pardoning was said by our Saxon ancestors13 too be derived a lege suae dignitatis [from the law of his dignity]: and it is declared in parliament, by statute 27 Hen. VIII. c. 24. that no other person has power to pardon or remit any treason or felonies whatsoever; but that the king has the whole and sole power thereof, united and knit to the imperial crown of this realm.

THIS is indeed one of the great advantages of monarchy in general, above any other form of government; that there is a magistrate, who has it in his power to extend mercy, wherever he thinks it is deserved: holding a court of equity in his own breast, to soften the rigor of the general law, in such criminal cases as merit an exemption from punishment. Pardons (according to some theorists14) should be excluded in a perfect legislation, where punishments are mild but certain: for that the clemency of the prince seems a tacit disapprobation of the laws. but the exclusion of pardons must necessarily introduce a very dangerous power in the judge or jury, that of construing the criminal law by the spirit instead of the letter;15 or else it must be held, what no man will seriously avow, that the situation and circumstances of the offender (though they alter not the essence of the crime) ought to make no distinction in the punishment. In democracies, however, this power of pardon can never subsist; for there nothing higher is acknowledged than the magistrate who administers the laws: and it would be impolitic for the power of judging and of pardoning to center in one and the same person. This (as the president Montesquieu observes16) would oblige him very often to contradict himself, to make and to unmake his decisions: it would tend to confound all ideas of right among the mass of the people; as they would find it difficult to tell, whether a prisoner were discharged by his innocence, or obtained a pardon through favor. In Holland therefore, if there be no stadtholder, there is no power of pardoning lodged in any other member of the state. But in monarchies the king acts in a superior sphere; and, though he regulates the whole government as the first mover, yet he does not appear in any of the disagreeable or invidious parts of it. Whenever the nation see him personally engaged, it is only in works of legislature, magnificence, or compassion. To him therefore the people look up as the fountain of nothing but bounty and grace; and these repeated acts of goodness, coming immediately from his own hand, endear the sovereign to his subjects, and contribute more than anything to root in their hearts that filial affection, and personal loyalty, which are the sure establishment of a prince.

UNDER this head, of pardons, let us briefly consider, 1. The object of pardon: 2. The manner of pardoning: 3. The method of allowing a pardon: 4. The effect of such pardon, when allowed.

1. AND, first, the king may pardon all offenses merely against the crown, or the public; excepting, 1. That, to preserve the liberty of the subject, the committing any man to prison out of the realm, is by the habeas corpus act, 31 Car. II. c. 2. made a praemunire, unpardonable even by the king. Nor, 2. Can the king pardon, where private justice is principally concerned in the prosecution of offenders: “non potest rex gratiam facere cum injuria et damno aliorum.”17 [“The king cannot confer a favor by the injury and loss of others.”] Therefore in appeals of all kinds (which are the suit, not of the king, but of the party injured) the prosecutor may release, but the king cannot pardon.18 Neither can he pardon a common nuisance, while it remains unredressed, or so as to prevent an abatement of it; though afterwards he may remit the fine: because, though the prosecution is vested in the king to avoid multiplicity of suits, yet (during its continuance) this offense favors more of the nature of a private injury to each individual in the neighborhood, than of a public wrong.19 Neither, lastly, can the king pardon an offense against a popular or penal statute, after information brought: for thereby the informer has acquired a private property in his part of the penalty.20

THERE is also a restriction of a peculiar nature, that affects the prerogative of pardoning, in case of parliamentary impeachments; viz. that the king’s pardon cannot be pleaded to any such impeachment, so as to impede the inquiry, and stop the prosecution of great and notorious offenders. Therefore when, in the reign of Charles the second, the earl of Danby was impeached by the house of commons of high treason and other misdemeanors and pleaded the king’s pardon in bar of the same, the commons alleged,21 “that there was no precedent, that ever any pardon was granted to any person impeached by the commons of high treason, or other high crimes, depending the impeachment;” and therefore resolved,22 “that the pardon so pleaded was illegal and void, and ought not to be allowed in bar of the impeachment of the commons of England:” for which resolution they assigned23 this reason to the house of lords, “that the setting up a pardon to be a bar of an impeachment defeats the whole use and effect of impeachments: for should this point be admitted, or stand doubted, it would totally discourage the exhibiting any for the future; whereby the chief institution for the preservation of the government would be destroyed.” Soon after the revolution, the commons renewed the same claim, and voted,24 “that a pardon is not pleadable in bar of an impeachment.” And, at length, it was enacted by the act of settlement, 12 & 13 W. III. c. 2. “that no pardon under the great seal of England shall be pleadable to an impeachment by the commons in parliament.” But, after the impeachment has been solemnly heard and determined, it is not understood that the king’s royal grace is farther restrained or abridged: for, after the impeachment and attainder of the six rebel lords in 1715, three of them were from time to time reprieved by the crown, and at length received the benefit of the king’s most gracious pardon.

2. AS to the manner of pardoning: it is a general rule, that, wherever it may reasonably be presumed the king is deceived, the pardon is void.25 Therefore any suppression of truth, or suggestion of falsehood, in a charter of pardon, will vitiate the whole; for the king was misinformed.26 General words have also a very imperfect effect in pardons. A pardon of all felonies will not pardon a conviction or attainder of felony; (for it is presumed the king knew not of those proceedings) but the conviction or attainder must be particularly mentioned:27 and a pardon of felonies will not include piracy;28 for that is no felony punishable at the common law. It is also enacted by statute 13 Ric. II. St. 2. c. 1. that no pardon for treason, murder, or rape, shall be allowed, unless the offense be particularly specified therein; and particularly in murder it shall be expressed, whether it was committed by lying in wait, assault, or malice prepense. Upon which Sir Edward Coke observes,29 that it was not the intention of the parliament that the king should ever pardon murder under these aggravations; and therefore they prudently laid the pardon under these restrictions, because they did not conceive it possible that the king would ever excuse an offense by name, which was attended with such high aggravations. And it is remarkable enough, that there is no precedent of a pardon in the register for any other homicide, than that which happens se defendendo [in self-defense] or per infortunium [by accident]: to which two species the king’s pardon was expressly confined by the statutes 2 Edw. III. c. 2. and 14 Edw. III. c. 15. which declare that no pardon of homicide shall be granted, but only where the king may do it by the oath of his crown; that is to say, where a man slays another in his own defense, or by misfortune. But the statute of Richard the second, before-mentioned, enlarges by implication the royal power; provided the king is not deceived in the intended object of his mercy. And therefore pardons of murder were always granted with a non obstante [notwithstanding] of the statute of king Richard, till the time of the revolution; when the doctrine of non obstante‘s ceasing, it was doubted whether murder could be pardoned generally: but it was determined by the court of king’s bench,30 that the king may pardon on an indictment of murder, as well as a subject may discharge an appeal. Under these and a few other restrictions, it is a general rule, that a pardon shall be taken most beneficially for the subject, and most strongly against the king.

A PARDON may also be conditional: that is, the king may extend his mercy upon what terms he pleases; and may annex to his bounty a condition either precedent or subsequent, on the performance whereof the validity of the pardon will depend: and this by the common law.31 Which prerogative is daily exerted in the pardon of felons, on condition of transportation to some foreign country (usually to some of his majesty’s colonies and plantations in America) for life, or for a term of years; such transportation or banishment32 being allowable and warranted by the habeas corpus act, 31 Car. II. c. 2. §. 14. and rendered more easy and effectual by statute 8 Geo. III. c. 15.

3. WITH regard to the manner of allowing pardons; we may observe, that a pardon by act of parliament is more beneficial than by the king’s charter: for a man is not bound to plead it, but the court must ex officio [officially] take notice of it;33 neither can he lose the benefit of it by his own laches [delay] or negligence, as he may of the king’s charter of pardon.34 The king’s charter of pardon must be specially pleaded, and that at a proper time: for if a man is indicted, and has a pardon in his pocket, and afterwards puts himself upon his trial by pleading the general issue, he has waived the benefit of such pardon.35 But, if a man avails himself thereof as soon as by course of law he may, a pardon may either be pleaded upon arraignment, or in arrest of judgment, or in the present stage of proceedings, in bar of execution. Anciently, by statute 10 Edw. III. c. 2. no pardon of felony could be allowed, unless the party found sureties for the good behavior before the sheriff and coroners of the county.36 But that statute is repealed by the statute 5 & 6 W. & M. c. 13. which, instead thereof, gives the judges of the court a discretionary power to bind the criminal, pleading such pardon, to his good behavior, with two sureties, for any term not exceeding seven years.

4. LASTLY, the effect of such pardon by the king, is to make the offender a new man; to acquit him of all corporal penalties and forfeitures annexed to that offense for which he obtains his pardon; and not so much to restore his former, as to give him a new, credit and capacity. But nothing can restore or purify the blood when once corrupted, if the pardon be not allowed till after attainder, but the high and transcendent power of parliament. Yet if a person attainted receives the king’s pardon, and afterwards has a son, that son may be heir to his father; because the father, being made a new man, might transmit new inheritable blood: though, had he been born before the pardon, he could never have inherited at all.37

NOTES

     1.    2 Hal. P. C. 412.
     2.    Fox, Acts and Mon.
     3.    Ff. 48. 19. 3.
     4.    Flet. l. 1. c. 38.
     5.    1 Hal. P. C. 369.
     6.    Ibid. 370.
     7.    See pag. 24.
     8.    1 Sid. 72.
     9.    Fost. 42.
   10.    1 Lev. 61. Fost. 42. 46.
   11.    Staundf. P. C. 163. Co. Litt. 157. Hal. Sum. 259.
   12.    Law of Forfeit. 99.
   13.    LL. Edw. Conf. c. 18.
   14.    Beccar. ch. 46.
   15.    Ibid. ch. 4.
   16.    Sp. L. b. 6. c. 5.
   17.    3 Inst. 236.
   18.    Ibid. 237.
   19.    2 Hawk. P. C. 391.
   20.    3 Inst. 238.
   21.    Com. Journ. 28 Apr. 1679.
   22.    Ibid. 5 May 1679.
   23.    Ibid. 26 May 1679.
   24.    Ibid. 6 Jun. 1689.
   25.    2 Hawk. P. C. 383.
   26.    3 Inst. 238.
   27.    2 Hawk. P. C. 383.
   28.    1 Hawk. P. C. 99.
   29.    3 Inst. 236.
   30.    Salk. 499.
   31.    2 Hawk. P. C. 394.
   32.    Transportation is said (Barr. 352.) to have been first inflicted, as a punishment, by statute 39 Eliz. c. 4.
   33.    Fost. 43.
   34.    2 Hawk. P. C. 397.
   35.    Ibid. 396.
   36.    Balk. 499.
   37.    See Vol. II. pag. 254.

miércoles, 21 de diciembre de 2016

BOOK 4, CHAPTER 30 Of Reversal of Judgment

formado por un único campo de gules en que aparecen tres leones pasantes y
contorneados de oro, lampasados y armados o uñados de azur.


WE are next to consider how judgments, with their several connected consequences, of attainder, forfeiture, and corruption of blood, may be set aside. There are two ways of doing this; either by falsifying or reversing the judgment, or else by reprieve or pardon.

A JUDGMENT may be falsified, reversed, or voided, in the first place, without a writ of error, for matters foreign to or dehors the record, that is, not apparent upon the face of it; so that they cannot be assigned for error in the superior court, which can only judge from what appears in the record itself: and therefore, if the whole record be not certified, or not truly certified, by the inferior court; the party injured thereby (in both civil and criminal cases) may allege a diminution of the record, and cause it to be rectified. Thus, if any judgment whatever be given by persons, who had no good commission to proceed against the person condemned, it is void; and may be falsified by showing the special matter, without writ of error. As, where a commission issues to A and B, and twelve others, or any two of them, of which A or B shall be one, to take and try indictments; and any of the other twelve proceed without the interposition or presence of either A, or B: in this case all proceedings, trials, convictions, and judgments are void for want of a proper authority in the commissioners, and may be falsified upon bare inspection without the trouble of a writ of error;1 it being a high misdemeanor in the judges so proceeding, and little (if anything) short of murder in them all, in case the person so attainted be executed and suffer death. So likewise if a man purchases land of another; and afterwards the vendor is, either by outlawry, or his own confession, convicted and attainted of treason or felony previous to the sale or alienation; whereby such land becomes liable to forfeiture or escheat: now, upon any trial, the purchaser is at liberty, without bringing any writ of error, to falsify not only the time of the felony or treason supposed, but the very point of the felony or treason itself; and is not concluded by the confession or the outlawry of the vendor; though the vendor himself is concluded, and not suffered now to deny the fact, which he has by confession or flight acknowledged. But if such attainder of the vendor was by verdict, on the oath of his peers, the alienee cannot be received to falsify or contradict the fact of the crime committed; though he is at limited after the alienation, and not before.2

SECONDLY, a judgment may be reversed, by writ of error: which lies from all inferior criminal jurisdictions to the court of king’s bench, and from the king’s bench to the house of peers; and may be brought for notorious mistakes in the judgment or other parts of the record: as where a man is found guilty of perjury and receives the judgment of felony, or for other less palpable errors; such as any irregularity, omission, or want of form in the process of outlawry, or proclamations; the want of a proper addition to the defendant’s name, according to the statute of additions; for not properly naming the sheriff or other office of the court, or not duly describing where his county court was held; for laying an offense, committed in the time of the late king, to be done against the peace of the present; and for may other similar causes, which (though allowed out of tenderness to life and liberty) are not much to the credit or advancement of the national justice. These writs of error, to reverse judgments in case of misdemeanors, are not to be allowed of course, but on sufficient probable cause shown to the attorney-general; and then they are understood to be grantable of common right, and ex debito justitiae [as due to justice]. But writs of error to reverse attainders in capital cases are only allowed ex gratia [as a favor]; and not without express warrant under the king’s sign manual, or at least by the consent of the attorney-general.3 These therefore can rarely be brought by the party himself, especially where he is attainted for an offense against the state: but they may be brought by his heir, or executor, after his death, in more favorable times; which may be some consolation to his family. But the easier, and more effectual way, is

LASTLY, to reverse the attainder by act of parliament. This may be and has been frequently done, upon motives of compassion, or perhaps the zeal of the times, after a sudden revolution in the government, without examining too closely into the truth or validity of the errors assigned. And sometimes, though the crime be universally acknowledged and confessed, yet the merits of the criminal’s family shall after his death obtain a restitution in blood, honors, and estate, or some, or one of the, by act of parliament; which (so far as it extends) has all the effect of reversing the attainder, without casting any reflections upon the justice of the preceding sentence.

THE effect of falsifying, or reversing, an outlawry is that the party shall be in the same plight as if he had appeared upon the capias [taking]: and, if it be before plea pleaded, he shall be put to plead to the indictment; if after conviction, he shall receive the sentence of the law: for all the other proceedings, except only the process of outlawry for his non-appearance, remain good and effectual as before. But when judgment, pronounced upon conviction, is falsified or reversed, all former proceedings are absolutely set aside, and the party stands as if he had never been at all accused; restored in his credit, his capacity, his blood, and his estates: with regard to which last, though they be granted away by the crown, yet the owner may enter upon the grantee, with as little ceremony as he might enter upon a disseizor.4 But he still remains liable to another prosecution for the same offense: for, the first being erroneous, he never was in jeopardy thereby.

NOTES

     1.    2 Hawk. P. C. 459.
     2.    3 Inst. 231. 1 Hal. P. C. 361.
     3.    1 Vern. 170. 175.
     4.    2 Hawk. P. C. 462.

martes, 20 de diciembre de 2016

BOOK 4, CHAPTER 29 Of Judgment, and its Consequences

formado por un único campo de gules en que aparecen tres leones pasantes y
contorneados de oro, lampasados y armados o uñados de azur.


WE are now to consider the next stage of criminal prosecution, after trial and conviction are past, in such crimes and misdemeanors, as are either too high or too low to be included within the benefit of clergy: which is that of judgment. For when, upon a capital charge, the jury have brought in their verdict, guilty, in the presence of the prisoner; he is either immediately, or at a convenient time soon after, asked by the court, if he has anything to offer why judgment should not be awarded against him. And in case the defendant be found guilty of a misdemeanor, (the trial of which may, and does usually, happen in his absence, after he has once appeared) a capias is awarded and issued, to bring him in to receive his judgment; and, if he absconds, he may be prosecuted even to outlawry. But whenever he appears in person, upon either a capital or inferior conviction, he may at this period, as well as at his arraignment, offer any exceptions to the indictment, in arrest or stay of judgment: as for want of sufficient certainty in setting forth either the person, the time, the place, or the offense. And, if the objections be valid, the whole proceedings shall be set aside; but the party may be indicted again.1 And we may take notice, 1. That none of the statutes of jeofails,2 for amendment of errors, extend to indictments or proceedings in criminal cases; and therefore a defective indictment is not aided by a verdict, as defective pleadings in civil cases are. 2. That, in favor of life, great strictness has at all times been observed, in every point of an indictment. Sir Matthew Hale indeed complains, “that this strictness is grown to be a blemish and inconvenience in the law, and the administration thereof: for that more offenders escape by the over-easy ear given to exceptions in indictments, than by their own innocence; and many times gross murders, burglaries, robberies, and other heinous and crying offenses, remain unpunished by these unseemly niceties; to the reproach of the law, to the shame of the government, to the encouragement of villainy, and to the dishonor of God.”3 And yet, notwithstanding this laudable zeal, no man was more tender of life, than this truly excellent judge.

A PARDON also, as has been before said, may be pleaded in arrest of judgment: and it has the same advantage when pleaded here, as when pleaded upon arraignment; viz. the saving the attainder, and of course the corruption of blood: which nothing can restore but parliament, when a pardon is not pleaded till after sentence. And certainly, upon all accounts, when a man has obtained a pardon, he is in the right to plead it is soon as possible.

PRAYING the benefit of clergy may also be ranked among the motions in arrest of judgment; of which we spoke largely in the preceding chapter.

IF all these resources fail, the court must pronounce that judgment, which the law has annexed to the crime, and which has been constantly mentioned, together with the crime itself, in some or other of the former chapters. Of these some are capital, which extend to the life of the offender, and consist generally in being hanged by the neck till dead; though in very atrocious crimes other circumstances of terror, pain, or disgrace are superadded: as, in treasons of all kings, being drawn or dragged to the place of execution; in high treason affecting the king’s person or government, emboweling alive, beheading, and quartering; and in murder, a public dissection. And, in case of any treason committed by a female, the judgment is to be burned alive. But the humanity of the English nation has authorized, by a tacit consent, an almost general mitigation of such part of these judgments as favor of torture or cruelty: a fledge or hurdle being usually allowed to such traitors as are condemned to be drawn; and there being very few instances (and those accidental or by negligence) of any person’s being emboweled or burned, till previously deprived of sensation by strangling. Some punishments consist in exile or banishment, by abjuration of the realm, or transportation to the American colonies: others in loss of liberty, by perpetual or temporary imprisonment. Some extend to confiscation, by forfeiture of lands, or moveables, or both, or of the profits of lands, for life: others induce a disability, of holding offices or employments, being heirs, executors, and the like. Some, though rarely, occasion a mutilation or dismembering, by cutting off the hand or ears: others fix a lasting stigma on the offender, by slitting the nostrils, or branding in the hand or face. Some are merely pecuniary, by stated or discretionary fines: and lastly there are others, that consist principally in their ignominy, though most of them are mixed with some degree of corporal pain; and these are inflicted chiefly for crimes, which arise from indigence, or which render even opulence disgraceful. Such as whipping, hard labor in the house of correction, the pillory, the stocks, and the ducking-stool.

DISGUSTING as this catalogue may seem, it will afford pleasure to an English reader, and do honor to the English law, to compare it with that shocking apparatus of death and torment, to be met with in the criminal codes of almost every other nation in Europe. And it is moreover one of the glories of our English law, that the nature, though not always the quantity or degree, of punishment is ascertained for every offense; and that it is not left in the breast of any judge, nor even of a jury, to alter that judgment, which the law has beforehand ordained, for every subject alike, without respect of persons. For, if judgments were to be the private opinions of the judge, men would then be slaves to their magistrates; and would live in society, without knowing exactly the conditions and obligations which it lays them under. And besides, as this prevents oppression on the one hand, so on the other it stifles all hopes of impunity or mitigation; with which an offender might flatter himself, if his punishment depended on the humor or discretion of the court. Whereas, where an established penalty is annexed to crimes, the criminal may read their certain consequence in that law, which ought to be the unvaried rule, as it is the inflexible judge, of his actions.

THE discretionary fines and discretionary length of imprisonment, which our courts are enabled to impose, may seem an exception to this rule. But the general nature of the punishment, viz. by fine or imprisonment, is in these cases fixed and determinate: though the duration and quantity of each must frequently vary, from the aggravations or otherwise of the offense, the quality and condition of the parties, and from innumerable other circumstances. The quantum [amount], in particular, of pecuniary fines neither can, nor ought to be, ascertained by any invariable law. The value of money itself changes from a thousand causes; and, at all events, what is ruin to one man’s fortune, may be matter of indifference, to another’s. Thus the law of the twelve tables at Rome fined every person, that struck another, five and twenty denarii [pence]: this, in n the more opulent days of the empire, grew to be a punishment of so little consideration, that Aulus Gellius tells a story of one Lucius Neratius, who made it his diversion to give a blow to whomever he pleased, and then tender them the legal forfeiture. Our statute law has not therefore often ascertained the quantity of fines, nor the common law ever; it directing such an offense to be punished by fine, in general, without specifying the certain sum: which is fully sufficient, when we consider, that however unlimited the power of the court may seem, it is far from being wholly arbitrary; but its discretion is regulated by law. For the bill of rights4 has particularly declared, that excessive fines ought not to be imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted: (which had a retrospect to some unprecedented proceedings is the court of king’s bench, in the reign of king James the second) and the same statute farther declares, that all grants and promises of fines and forfeitures of particular persons, before conviction, are illegal and void. Now the bill of rights was only declaratory, throughout, of the old constitutional law of the land: and accordingly we find it expressly held, long before5that all such previous grants are void; since thereby many times undue means, and more violent prosecution, would be used for private lucre, than the quiet and just proceeding of law would permit.

THE reasonableness of fines in criminal cases has also been usually regulated by the determination of Magna Carta,6 concerning amercements for misbehavior in matters of civil right. “Liber homo non amercietur pro parvo delicto, nisi secundum modum ipsius delicti; et pro magno delicto, secundum magnitudinem delicti; salvo contenemento suo: et mercator eodem modo, salva mercandisa sua; et villanus eodem modo amercietur, salvo wainagio suo.” [“A free man shall be amerced for a small offence, only according to its measure; and for a great offence, only according to its magnitude, saving his land; and the merchant in the same manner, saving his merchandise; and a villein shall be amerced in the same manner, saving his wainage.”] A rule, that obtained even in Henry the second’s time,7 and means only, that no man shall have a larger amercement imposed upon him, than his circumstances or personal estate will bear: saving to the landholder his contenement, or land; to the trader his merchandise; and to the countryman his wainage, or team and instruments of husbandry. In order to ascertain which, the great charter also directs, that the amercement, which is always inflicted in general terms (“sit in misericordia” [“let him be at the mercy”]) shall be set, ponatur, or reduced to a certainty, the oath of a jury. This method, of liquidating the amercement to a precise sum, is usually done in the court-leet and court-baron by affeerors, or jurors sworn to affeere, that is, tax and moderate, the general amercement according to the particular circumstances of the offense and the offender. In imitation of which, in courts superior to these, the ancient practice was to inquire by a jury, when a fine was imposed upon any man, “quantum inde regi dare valeat per annum, salva sustentatione sua, et uxoris, et liberorum suorum.”8 [“How much he could pay a year to the king, saving his maintenance, and the maintenance of his wife and children.”] And, since the disuse of such inquest, it is never usual to assess a larger fine than a man is able to pay, without touching the implements of his livelihood; but to inflict corporal punishment, or a stated imprisonment, which is better than an excessive fine, for that amounts to imprisonment for life. And this is the reason why fines in the king’s court are frequently denominated ransoms, because the penalty must otherwise fall upon a man’s person, unless it be redeemed or ransomed by a pecuniary fine:9 according to an ancient maxim, qui non habet in crumena luat in corpore [let him who has nothing in purse pay in person]. Yet, where any statute speaks both of fine and ransom, it is held, that the ransom shall be treble to the fine at least.10

WHEN sentence of death, the most terrible and highest judgment in the laws of England, is pronounced, the immediate inseparable consequence by the common law is attainder. For when it is now clear beyond all dispute, that the criminal is no longer fit to live upon the earth, but is to be exterminated as a monster and a bane to human society, the law sets a note of infamy upon him, puts him out of its protection, and takes no farther care of him than barely to see him executed. He is then called attaint, attinctus, stained, or blackened. He is no longer of any credit or reputation; he cannot be a witness in any court; neither is he capable of performing the functions of another man: for, by an anticipation of his punishment, he is already dead in law.11 This is after judgment: for there is great difference between a man convicted, and attainted; though they are frequently through inaccuracy confounded together. After conviction only, a man is liable to none of these disabilities: for there is still in contemplation of law a possibility of his innocence. Something may be offered in arrest of judgment: the indictment may be erroneous, which will render his guilt uncertain, and thereupon the present conviction may be quashed: he may obtain a pardon, or be allowed the benefit of clergy; both which suppose some latent sparks of merit, which plead in extenuation of his fault. But when judgment is once pronounced, both law and fact conspire to prove him completely guilty; and there is not the remotest possibility left of anything to be said in his favor. Upon judgment therefore of death, and not before, the attainder of a criminal commences: or upon such circumstances as are equivalent to judgment of death; as judgment of outlawry on a capital crime, pronounced for absconding or fleeing from justice, which tacitly confesses the guilt. And therefore either upon judgment of outlawry, or of death, for treason or felony, a man shall be said to be attainted.

THE consequences of attainder are forfeiture, and corruption of blood.

I. FORFEITURE is twofold; of real, and personal, estates. First, as to real estates: by attainder in high treason12 a man forfeits to the king all his lands and tenements of inheritance, whether fee-simple or fee-tail, and all his rights of entry on lands and tenements, which he held at the time of the offense committed, or at any time afterwards, to be forever vested in the crown: and also the profits of all lands and tenements, which he had in his own right for life or years, so long as such interest shall subsist. This forfeiture relates backwards to the time of the treason committed; so as to avoid all intermediate sales and encumbrances,13 but not those before the fact: and therefore a wife’s jointure is not forfeitable for the treason of the husband; because settled upon her previous to the treason committed. But her dower is forfeited, by the express provision of statute 5 & 6 Edw. VI. c. 11. And yet the husband shall be tenant by the curtesy of the wife’s lands, if the wife be attainted of treason:14 for that is not prohibited by the statute. But, though after attainder the forfeiture relates back to the time of the treason committed, yet it does not take effect unless an attainder be had, of which it is one of the fruits: and therefore, if a traitor dies before judgment pronounced, or is killed in open rebellion, or is hanged by martial law, it works no forfeiture of his lands; for he never was attainted of treason.15

THE natural justice of forfeiture or confiscation of property, for treason,16 is founded in this consideration: that he who has thus violated the fundamental principles of government, and broken his part of the original contract between king and people, has abandoned his connections with society; and has no longer any right to those advantages, which before belonged to him purely as a member of the community: among which social advantages the right of transferring or transmitting property to others is one of the chief. Such forfeitures moreover, whereby his posterity must suffer as well as himself, will help to restrain a man, not only by the sense of his duty, and dread of personal punishment, but also by his passions and natural affections; and will interest every dependent and relation he has, to keep him from offending: according to that beautiful sentiment of Cicero,17 “nec vero me fugit quam sit acerbum, parentun scelera filiorum poenis lui: sed hoc praeclare legibus comparatum est, ut caritas liberorum amiciores parentes reipublicae redderet.” [“Nor has it escaped me how hard it is, that the crimes of parents should be atoned for by punishment of their sons; but it is wisely provided by the laws, that affection for children may make parents more faithful to the republic.”] And therefore Aulus Cascellius, a Roman lawyer in the time of the triumvirate, used to boast that he had two reasons for despising the power of the tyrants; his old age, and his want of children: for children are pledges to the prince of the father’s obedience.18 Yet many nations have thought, that this posthumous punishment favors of hardship to the innocent; especially for crimes that do not strike at the very root and foundation of society, as treason against the government expressly does. And therefore, though confiscations were very frequent in the times of the earlier emperors, yet Arcadius and Honorius in every other instance but than of treason thought it more just, “ibi esse poenam, ubi et noxa est” [“where the crime is the punishment should be”] and ordered that “peccata suos teneant auctores, nec ulterius progrediatur metus, quam reperiatur delictum:”19 [“crimes should affect only their perpetrators, and the dread of punishment not extend beyond the sphere of offense”] and Justinian also made a law to restrain the punishment of relations;20 which directs the forfeiture to go, except in the case of crimen majestatis [high treason], to the next of kin to the delinquent. On the other hand the Macedonian laws extended even the capital punishment of treason, not only to the children but to all the relations of the delinquent:21 and of course their estates must be also forfeited, as no man was left to inherit them. And in Germany, by the famous golden bulle,22 (copied almost verbatim from Justinian’s code23) the lives of the sons of such as conspire to kill an elector are spared, as it is expressed, by the emperor’s particular bounty. But they are deprived of all their effects and rights of succession, and are rendered incapable of any honor ecclesiastical or civil: “to the end that, being always poor and necessitous, they may forever be accompanied by the infamy of their father; may languish in continual indigence; and may find (says this merciless edict) their punishment in living, and their relief in dying.”

WITH us in England, forfeiture of lands and tenements to the crown for treason is by no means derived from the feudal policy, (as has been already observed24) but was antecedent to the establishment of that system in this island; being transmitted from our Saxon ancestors,25 and forming a part of the ancient Scandinavian constitution.26 But in some treasons relating to the coin, (which, as we formerly observed, seem rather a species of the crimen falsi [forgery], than the crimen laesae majestatis) it is provided by the several modern statutes which constitute the offense, that it shall work no forfeiture of lands. And, in order to abolish such hereditary punishment entirely, it was enacted by statute 7 Ann. c. 21. that, after the decease of the late pretender, no attainder for treason should extend to the disinheriting of any heir, nor to the prejudice of any person, other than the traitor himself. By which, the law of forfeitures for high treason would by this time have been at an end, had not a subsequent statute intervened to give them a longer duration. The history of this matter is somewhat singular and worthy observation. At the time of the union, the crime of treason in Scotland was, by the Scots law, in many, respects different from that of treason in England; and particularly in its consequence of forfeitures of intailed estates, which was more peculiarly English: yet it seemed necessary, that a crime so nearly affecting government should, both in its essence and consequences, be put upon the same footing in both parts of the united kingdoms. In new-modeling these laws, the Scotch nation and the English house of commons struggled hard, partly to maintain, and partly to acquire, a total immunity from forfeiture and corruption of blood: which the house of lords as firmly resisted. At length a compromise was agree to, which is established by this statute, viz. that the same crimes, and no other, should be treason in Scotland that are so in England; and then cease throughout the whole of Great Britain:27 the lords artfully proposing this temporary clause, in hopes (it is said28) that the prudence of succeeding parliaments would make it perpetual.29 This has partly been done by the statute 17 Geo. II. c. 39. (made in the year preceding the late rebellion) the operation of these indemnifying clauses being thereby still farther suspended, till the death of the sons of the pretender.30

IN petit treason and felony, the offender also forfeits all his chattel interests absolutely, and the profits of all estates of freehold during life; and, after his death, all his lands and tenements in fee-simple (but not those in tail) to the crown, for a very short period of time: for the king shall have them for a year and a day, and may commit therein what waste he pleases; which is called the king’s year, day, and waste.31 Formerly the king had only a liberty of committing waste on the lands of felons, by pulling down their houses, extirpating their gardens, plowing their meadows, and cutting down their woods. And a punishment of a similar spirit appears to have obtained in the oriental countries, from the decrees of Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus in the books of Daniel32 and Ezra;33 which, besides the pain of death inflicted on the delinquents there specified, ordain, “that their houses shall be made a dunghill.” But this tending greatly to the prejudice of the public, it was agreed in the reign of Henry the first, in this kingdom, that the king should have the profits of the land for one year and a day, in lieu of the destruction he was otherwise at liberty to commit:34 and therefore Magna Carta35 provides, that the king shall only hold such lands for a year and day, and then restore them to the lord of the fee; without any mention made of waste. But the statute 17 Edw. II. de praerogativa rigus [of the king’s prerogative], seems to suppose, that the king shall have his year, day, and waste; and not the year and day instead of waste. Which Sir Edward Coke (and the author of the mirror, before him) very justly look upon as an encroachment, though a very ancient one, of the royal prerogative.36 This year, day, and waste are now usually compounded for; but otherwise they regularly belong to the crown: and, after their expiration, the land would naturally have descended to the heir, (as in gavelkind tenure it still does) did not its feudal quality intercept such descent, and give it by way of escheat to the lord. These forfeitures for felony do also arise only upon attainder; and therefore a felo de se [suicide] forfeits no lands of inheritance or free hold, for he never is attainted as a felon.37 They likewise relate back to the time of the offense committed, as well as forfeitures for treason; so as to avoid all intermediate charges and conveyances. This may be hard upon such as have unwarily engaged with the offender: but the cruelty and reproach must lie on the part, not of the law, but of the criminal; who has thus knowingly and dishonestly involved others in his own calamities.

THESE are all the forfeitures of real estates, created by the common law, as consequential upon attainders by judgment of death or outlawry. I here omit the particular forfeitures created by the statutes of praemunire [forewarning] and others: because I look upon them rather as a part of the judgment and penalty, inflicted by the respective statutes, then as consequences of such judgment; as in treason and felony they are. But I shall just mention, under this division of real estates, the forfeiture of the profits of lands during life: which extends to two other instances, besides those already spoken of; misprision of treason,38 and striking in Westminster-hall, or drawing a weapon upon a judge there, sitting the king’s courts of justice.39

THE forfeiture of goods and chattels accrues in every one of the higher kinds of offense: in high treason or misprision thereof, petit treason, felonies of all sorts whether clergyable or not, self-murder or felony de se, petty larceny, standing mute, and the above-mentioned offense of striking in Westminster-hall. For flight also, on an accusation of treason, felony, or even petit larceny, whether the party be found guilty or acquitted, if the jury find the flight, the party shall forfeit his goods and chattels: for the very flight is an offense, carrying with it a strong presumption of guilt, and is at least an endeavor to elude and stifle the course of justice prescribed by the law. But the jury very seldom finds the slight: forfeiture being looked upon, since the vast increase of personal property of late years, as rather too large a penalty for an offense, to which a man is prompted by the natural love of liberty.

THERE is a remarkable difference or two between the forfeiture of lands and of goods and chattels. 1. Lands are forfeited upon attainder, and not before: goods and chattels are forfeited by conviction. Because in many of the cases where goods are forfeited, there never is any attainder; which happens only where judgment of death or outlawry is given: therefore in those cases the forfeiture must be upon conviction, or not at all; and, being necessarily upon conviction in those, it is so ordered in all other cases, for the law loves uniformity. 2. In outlawries for treason or felony, lands are forfeited only by the judgment: but the goods and chattels are forfeited by a man’s being first put in the exigent, without staying till he is quinto exactus [required the fifth time], or finally outlawed; for the secreting himself so long from justice, is construed a flight in law.40 3. The forfeiture of lands has relation to the time of the fact committed, so as to avoid all subsequent sales and encumbrances: but the forfeiture of goods and chattels has no relation backwards; so that those only which a man has at the time of conviction shall be forfeited. Therefore a traitor or felon may bona fide [in good faith] sell any of his chattels, real or personal, for the sustenance of himself and family between the fact and conviction:41 for personal property is of so fluctuating a nature, that it passes through many hands in a short time; and no buyer could be safe, if he were liable to return the goods which he had fairly bought, provided any of the prior vendors had committed a treason or felony. Yet if they be collusively and not bona fide parted with, merely to defraud the crown, the law (and particularly the statute 13 Eliz. c. 5.) will reach them; for they are all the while truly and substantially the goods of the offender: and as he, if acquitted, might recover them himself, as not parted with for a good consideration; so, in case he happens to be convicted, the law will recover them for the king.

II. ANOTHER immediate consequence of attainder is the corruption of blood, both upwards and downwards; so that an attainted person can neither inherit lands or other hereditaments from his ancestors, nor retain those he is already in possession of, nor transmit them by descent to any heir; but the same shall escheat to the lord of the fee, subject to the king’s superior right of forfeiture: and the person attainted shall also obstruct all descents to his posterity, wherever they are obliged to derive a title through him to a remoter ancestor.42

THIS is one of those notions which our laws have adopted from the feudal constitutions, at the time of the Norman conquest; as appears from its being unknown in those tenures which are indisputably Saxon, or gavelkind: wherein, though by treason, according to the ancient Saxon laws, the land is forfeited to the king, yet no corruption of blood, no impediment of descents, ensues; and on judgment of mere felony no escheat accrues to the lord. And therefore, as every other oppressive mark of feudal tenure is now happily worn away in these kingdoms, it is to be hoped, that this corruption of blood, with all its connected consequences, not only of present escheat, but of future incapacities of inheritance even to the twentieth generation, may in process of time be abolished by act of parliament: as it stands upon a very different footing from the forfeiture of lands for high treason, affecting the king’s person or government. And indeed the legislature has, from time to time, appeared very inclinable to give way to so equitable a provision; by enacting, that, in treasons respecting the papal supremacy43 and counterfeiting the public coin,44 and in many of the new-made felonies, created since the reign of Henry the eighth by act of parliament, corruption of blood shall be saved. But as in some of the acts for creating felonies (and those not of the most atrocious kind) this saving was neglected, or forgotten, to be made, it seems to be highly reasonable and expedient to antiquate the whole of this doctrine by one undistinguishing law: especially as by the afore-mentioned statute of 7 Ann. c. 21. (the operation of which is postponed by statute 17 Geo. II. c. 39.) after the death of the sons of the late pretender, no attainder for treason will extend to the disinheriting any heir, nor the prejudice of any person, other than the offender himself; which virtually abolishes all corruption of blood for treason, though (unless the legislature should interpose) it will still continue for many sorts of felony.

NOTES

     1.    4 Rep. 45.
     2.    See Vol. III. pag. 406.
     3.    2 Hal. P. C. 193.
     4.    Stat. 1 W. & M. St. 2. c. 2.
     5.    2 Inst. 48.
     6.    cap 14.
     7.    Glanv. l. 9. c. 8 & 11.
     8.    Gilb. Exch. c. 5.
     9.    Mirr. c. 5. § 3. Lamb. Eirenarch. 575.
   10.    Dyer. 232.
   11.    3 Inst. 213.
   12.    Co. Litt. 392. 3 Inst. 19. 1 Hal. P. C. 240. 2 Hawk. P. C. 448.
   13.    3 Inst. 211.
   14.    1 Hal. P. C. 359.
   15.    Co. Litt. 13.
   16.    See Vol. I. pag. 299.
   17.    ad Brutum, ep. 12.
   18.    Gravin. 1. § 68.
   19.    Cod. 9. 47. 22.
   20.    Nov. 134. c. 13.
   21.    Qu. Curt. l. 6.
   22.    cap. 24.
   23.    l. 9. t. 8. l. 5.
   24.    See Vol. II. pag. 251.
   25.    LL. Aelfr. c. 4. Canut. c. 54.
   26.    Stiernh. de jure Goth. l. 2. c. 6. & l. 3. c. 3.
   27.    Burnet’s Hist. A. D. 1709.
   28.    Consid. on the law of forfeiture. 6.
   29.    See Fost. 250.
   30.    The justice and expediency of this provision were defended at the time, with much learning and strength of argument, in the considerations on the law of forfeiture, first published A. D. 1744. (See Vol. I. pag. 244)
   31.    2 Inst. 37.
   32.    ch. iii. v. 29.
   33.    ch. vi. v. 11.
   34.    Mirr. c. 4. § 16. Flet. l. 1. c. 28.
   35.    9 Hen. III. c. 22.
   36.    Mirr. c. 5. § 2. 2 Inst. 37.
   37.    3 Inst. 55.
   38.    Ibid. 218.
   39.    Ibid. 141.
   40.    3 Inst. 232.
   41.    2 Hawk. P. C. 454.
   42.    See Vol. II. pag. 251.
   43.    Stat. 5 Eliz. c. 1.
   44.    Stat. 5 Eliz. c. 11. 18 Eliz. c. 1. 8 & 9 W. III. c. 26. 15 & 16 Geo. II. c. 28.

BOOK 4, CHAPTER 28 Of the Benefit of Clergy

formado por un único campo de gules en que aparecen tres leones pasantes y
contorneados de oro, lampasados y armados o uñados de azur.


AFTER trial and conviction, the judgment of the court regularly follows, unless suspended or arrested by some intervening circumstance; of which the principal is the benefit of clergy: a title of no small curiosity as well as use; and concerning which I shall therefore inquire, 1. Into its original, and the various mutations which this privilege of clergy has sustained. 2. To what persons it is to be allowed at this day. 3. In what cases. 4. The consequences of allowing it.

I. CLERGY, the privilegium clericale, or in common speech the benefit of clergy, had its original from the pious regard paid by Christian princes to the church in its infant state; and the ill use which the popish ecclesiastics soon made of that pious regard. The exemptions, which they granted to the church, were principally of two kinds: 1. Exemption of places, consecrated to religious duties, from criminal arrests, which was the foundation of sanctuaries: 2. Exemption of the persons of clergymen from criminal process before the secular judge in a few particular cases, which was the true original and meaning of the privilegium clericale.

BUT the clergy, increasing in wealth, power, honor, number, and interest, began soon to set up for themselves: and that which they obtained by the favor of the civil government, they now claimed as their inherent right; and as a right of the highest nature, indefeasible, and jure divino [divine right].1 By their canons therefore and constitutions they endeavored at, and where they met with easy princes obtained, a vast extension of these exemptions: as well in regard to the crimes themselves, of which the life became quite universal;2 as in regard to the persons exempted, among whom were at length comprehended not only every little subordinate officer belonging to the church or clergy, but even many that were totally laymen.

IN England however, although the usurpations of the pope were very many and grievous, till Henry the eighth entirely exterminated his supremacy, yet a total exemption of the clergy from secular jurisdiction could never be thoroughly effected, though often endeavored by the clergy:3 and therefore, though the ancient privilegium clericale was in some capital cases, yet it was not universally, allowed. And in those particular cases, the use was for the bishop or ordinary to demand his clerks to be remitted out of the king’s courts, as soon as they were indicted: concerning the allowance of which demand there was for many years a great uncertainty:4 till at length it was finally settled in the reign of Henry the sixth, that the prisoner should first be arraigned; and might either then claim his benefit of clergy, by way of declinatory plea; or, after conviction, by way of arresting judgment. This latter way is most usually practiced, as it is more to the satisfaction of the court to have the crime previously ascertained by confession or the verdict of a jury; and also as it is more advantageous to the prisoner himself, who may possibly be acquitted, and so need not the benefit of his clergy at all.

ORIGINALLY the law was held, that no man should be admitted to the privilege of clergy, but such as had the habitum et tonsuram clericalem [clerical habit and tonsure].5 But in process of time a much wider and more comprehensive criterion was established: every one that could read (a mark of great learning in those days of ignorance and her sister superstition) being accounted a clerk or clericus, and allowed the benefit of clerkship, though neither initiated in holy orders, nor trimmed with the clerical tonsure. But when learning, by means of the invention of printing, and other concurrent causes, began to be more generally disseminated than formerly; and reading was no longer a competent proof of clerkship, or being in holy orders; it was found that as many laymen as divines were admitted to the privilegium clericale: and therefore by statute 4 Hen. VII. c. 13. a distinction was once more drawn between mere lay scholars, and clerks that were really in orders. And though it was thought reasonable still to mitigate the severity of the law with regard to the former, yet they were not put upon the same footing with actual clergy; being subjected to a slight degree of punishment, and not allowed to claim the clerical privilege more than once. Accordingly the statute directs, that no person, once admitted to the benefit of clergy, shall be admitted thereto a second time, unless he produces his orders: and, in order to distinguish their persons, all laymen who are allowed this privilege shall be burnt with a hot iron in the brawn of the left thump. This distinction between learned lawmen, and real clerks in orders, was abolished for a time by the statutes 28 Hen. VIII. c. 1, and 32 Hen. VIII. c. 3. but is held6 to have been virtually restored by statute 1 Edw. VI. c. 12. which statute also enacts that lords of parliament, and peers of the realm, may have the benefit of their peerage, equivalent to that of clergy, for the first offense, (although they cannot read, and without being burnt in the hand) for all offenses then clergyable to commoners, and also for the crimes of housebreaking, highway robbery, horse-stealing, and robbing of churches.

AFTER this burning the laity, and before it the real clergy, were discharged from the sentence of the law in the king’s courts, and delivered over to the ordinary, to be dealt with according to the ecclesiastical canons. Whereupon the ordinary, not satisfied with the proofs adduced in the profane secular court, set himself formally to work to make a purgation of the offender by a new canonical trial; although he had been previously convicted by his country, or perhaps by his own confession. This trial was held before the bishop in person, or hid deputy; and by a jury of twelve clerks: and there, first, the party himself was required to make oath of his own innocence; next, there was to be the oath of twelve compurgators, who swore they believed he spoke the truth; then, witnesses were to be examined upon oath, but on behalf of the prisoner only and, lastly, the jury were to bring in their verdict upon oath, which usually acquitted the prisoner: otherwise, if a clerk, he was degraded, or put to penance.7 A learned judge, in the beginning of the last century,8 remarks with much indignation the vast complication of perjury and subornation of perjury, in this solemn farce of a mock trial; the witnesses, the compurgators, and the jury, being all of them partakers in the guilt: the delinquent party also, though convicted before on the clearest evidence, and conscious of his own offense, yet was permitted evidence, and conscious of his own offense, yet was permitted and almost compelled to swear himself not guilty: nor was the good bishop himself, under whose countenance this scene of wickedness was daily transacted, by any means exempt from a share of it. and yet by this purgation the party was restored to his credit, his liberty, his lands, and his capacity of purchasing afresh, and was entirely made a new and an innocent man.

THIS scandalous prostitution of oaths, and the forms of justice, in the almost constant acquittal of felonious clerks by purgation, was the occasion, that, upon very heinous and notorious circumstances of guilt, the temporal courts would not trust the ordinary with the trial of the offender, but delivered over to him the convicted clerk, absque purgatione facienda [without making purgation]: in which situation the clerk convict could not make purgation; but was to continue in prison during life, and was incapable of acquiring any personal property, or receiving the profits of his lands, unless the king should please to pardon him. Both these courses were in some degree exceptionable; the latter being perhaps too rigid, as the former was productive of the most abandoned perjury. As therefore these mock trials took their rise from factious and popish tenets, tending to exempt one part of the nation from the general municipal law; it became high time, when the reformation was thoroughly established, to abolish so vain and impious a ceremony.

ACCORDINGLY the statute 18. Eliz. c. 7. enacts, that, for the avoiding of such perjuries and abuses, after the offender has been allowed his clergy, he shall not be delivered to the ordinary, as formerly; but, upon such allowance and burning in the hand, he shall forthwith be enlarged and delivered out of prison; with proviso, that the judge may, if he thinks fit, continue the offender in jail for any time not exceeding a year. And thus the law continued, for above a century, unaltered; except only that the statute 21 Jac. I. c. 6. allowed, that women convicted of simple larcenies under the value of ten shillings should, (not properly have the benefit of clergy, for they were not called upon to read; but) be burned in the hand, and whipped, stocked, or imprisoned for any time not exceeding a year. And a similar indulgence, by the statutes 3 & 4 W. & M. c. 9. and 4 & 5 W. & M. c. 24. was extended to women, guilty of any clergyable felony whatsoever; who were allowed to claim the benefit of the statute, in like manner as men might claim the benefit of clergy, and to be discharged upon being burned in the hand, and imprisoned for any time not exceeding a year. All women, all peers, and all commoners who cloud read, were therefore discharged in such felonies; absolutely, if clerks in orders; and for the first offense, upon burning in the hand, if lay: yet all liable (excepting peers) if the judge saw occasion, to imprisonment not exceeding a year. And those men, who could not read, if under the degree of peerage, were hanged.

AFTERWARDS indeed it was considered, that education and learning were no extenuations of guilt, but quite the reverse: and that, if the punishment of death for simple felony was too severe for those who had been liberally instructed, it was, a fortiori [consequently], too severe for the ignorant also. And thereupon by statute 5 Ann. c. 6. it was enacted, that the benefit of clergy should be granted to all those who were entitled to ask it, without requiring them to read by way of conditional merit.

BUT a few years experience having shown, that this universal lenity was frequently inconvenient, and an encouragement to commit the lower degrees of felony; and that, though capital punishments were too rigorous for these inferior offenses, yet no punishment at all (or next to none, as branding or whipping) was as much too gentle; it was enacted by statutes 4 Geo. I. c. 11. and 6 Geo. I. c. 23. that when any persons shall be convicted of any larceny, either grand or petit, and shall be entitled to the benefit of clergy, or9 liable only to the penalties of burning in the hand or whipping, the court in their discretion, instead of such burning in the hand or whipping, may direct such offenders to be transported to America for seven years: and, if they return within that time, it shall be felony without benefit of clergy.

IN this state does the benefit of clergy at present stand; very considerably different from its original institution: the wisdom of the English legislature having, in the course of a long and laborious process, extracted by a noble alchemy rich medicines out of poisonous ingredients; and converted, by gradual mutations, what was at first an unreasonable exemption of particular popish ecclesiastics, into a merciful mitigation of the general law, with respect to capital punishment.

FROM the whole of this detail we may collect, that, however in times of ignorance and superstition that monster in true policy may for a while subsist, of a body of men, residing in the bowels of a state, and yet independent of its laws; yet, when learning and rational religion have a little enlightened mens minds, society can no longer endure an absurdity so gross, as must destroy its very fundamentals. For, by the original contract of government, the price of protection by the united force of individuals is that of obedience to the united will of the community. This united will is declared in the laws of the land: and that united force in exerted in their due, and universal, execution.

II. I AM next to inquire, to what persons the benefit of clergy is to be allowed at this day: and this must be chiefly collected from what has been observed in the preceding article. For, upon the whole, we may pronounce, that all clerks in orders are, without any branding, and of course without nay transportation, (for that is only substituted in lieu of the other) to be admitted to this privilege, and immediately discharged, or at most only confined for one year: and this as often as they offend.10 Again, all lords of parliament and peers of the realm, by the statute 1 Edw. VI. c. 12. shall be discharged in all clergyable and other felonies, provided for by the act, without any burning in the hand, in the same manner, as real clerks convict: but this is only for the first offense. Lastly, all the commons of the realm, not in orders, whether male or female,11 shall for the first offense be discharged of the punishment for felonies, within the benefit of clergy; upon being burnt in the hand, imprisoned for a year, or less; or, in case of larceny, being transported for seven years, if the court shall thing proper. If has been said, that Jews, and other infidels and heretics, were not capable of the benefit of clergy, till after the statute 5 Ann. c. 6. as being under a legal incapacity for orders.12 But, with deference to such respectable authority, I much question whether this was ever ruled for law, since the re-introduction of the Jews into England, in the time of Oliver Cromwell. For, if that were the case, the Jews are still in the same predicament, which every day’s experience will contradict: the statute of queen Anne having certainly made no alteration in this respect; it only dispensing with the necessity of reading in those persons, who, in case they could read, were before the act entitled to the benefit of their clergy.

III. THE third point to be considered is, for what crimes the privilegium clericale, or benefit of clergy, is to be allowed. And, it is to be observed, that neither in high treason, nor in petit larceny, nor in any mere misdemeanors, it was indulged at the common law; and therefore we may lay it down for a rule, that it was allowable only in petit treason and felonies: which for the most part became legally entitled to this indulgence by the statute de clero [of clergy], 25 Edw. III. St. 3. c. 4. which provides, that clerks convict for treasons or felonies, touching other persons than the king himself or his royal majesty, shall have the privilege of holy church. But yet it was not allowable in all felonies whatsoever: for in some it was denied even by the common law, viz. insidiatio viarum, or lying in wait for one on the highway; depopulatio agrorum, or destroying and ravaging a country;13 and combustio domorum, or arson, that is, the burning of houses;14 all which are kind of hostile acts, and in some degree border upon treason. And farther, all these identical crimes, together with petit treason, and very many other acts of felony, are ousted of clergy by particular acts of parliament; which have in general been mentioned under the particular offenses to which they belong, and therefore need not be here recapitulated. Of all which statutes for excluding clergy I shall only observe, that they are nothing else but the restoring of the law to the same rigor of capital punishment in the first offense, that in exerted before the privilegium clericale was at all indulged; and which it still exerts upon a second offense in almost all kinds of felonies, unless committed by clerks actually in orders. We may also remark, that by the marine law, as declared in statute 28 Hen. VIII. c. 15. the benefit of clergy is not allowed in any case whatsoever. And therefore when offenses are committed within the admiralty-jurisdiction, which would be clergyable if committed by land, the constant course is to acquit and discharge the prisoner.15 And lastly, under this head of inquiry, we may observe the following rules: 1. That in all felonies, whether new created or by common law, clergy is now allowable, unless taken away by express words of an act of parliament.16 2. That, where clergy is taken away from the principal, it is not of course taken away from the accessory, unless he be also particularly included in the words of the statute.17 3. That, when the benefit of clergy is taken away from the offense, (as in case of murder, buggery, robbery, rape, and burglary) a principal in the second degree, aiding and abetting the crime, is as well excluded from his clergy as he that is principal in the first degree: but, 4. That, where it is only taken away from the person committing the offense, (as in the case of stabbing, or committing larceny in a dwelling house, or privately from the person) his aiders and abetters are not excluded; through the tenderness of the law, which has determined that such statutes shall be taken literally.18

IV. LASTLY, we are to inquire what the consequences are to the party, of allowing him this benefit of clergy. I speak not of the branding, imprisonment, or transportation; which are rather concomitant conditions, than consequences of receiving this indulgence. The consequences are such as affect his present interest, and future credit and capacity: as having been once a felon, but now purged from that guilt by the privilege of clergy; which operates as a kind of statute pardon.

AND, we may observe, 1. That by his conviction be forfeits all his goods to the king; which, being once vested in the crown, shall not afterwards be restored to the offender.19 2. That, after conviction, and till he receives the judgment of the law, by branding or the like, or else is pardoned by the king, he is to all intents and purposes a felon, and subject to all the disabilities and other incidents of a felon.20 3. That, after burning or pardon, he is discharged forever of that, and all other felonies before committed, within the benefit of clergy; but not of felonies from which such benefit is excluded: and this by statutes 8 Eliz. c. 4. and 18 Eliz. c. 7. 4. That by the burning, or pardon of it, he is restored to all capacities and credits, and the possession of his lands, as if he had never been convicted.21 5. That what is said with regard to the advantages of commoners and laymen, subsequent to the burning in the hand, is equally applicable to all peers and clergymen, although never branded at all. For they have the same privileges, without any burning, which others are entitled to after it.22

NOTES

     1.    The principal argument, upon which they founded this exemption, was that text of scripture; “touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm.” (Keilw. 181.)
     2.    See Vol. III. pag. 62.
     3.    Keilw. 180.
     4.    2 Hal. P. C. 377.
     5.    2 Hal. P. C. 372. M. Paris. A. D. 1259. See Vol. I. pag. 24.
     6.    Hob. 294.
     7.    3 P. Wms. 447. Hob. 289.
     8.    hon. 291
     9.    The printed statute book reads and instead of or: and, if that be the true reading, it may be doubted, and, as the consequence may in some cases be capital, it deserves to be explained by the legislature, whether women, and persons convicted of petit larceny, are strictly within these statutes of George the first; for the statutes, as printed, seem to extend only to such convicts as are entitled to the benefit of clergy, which no woman, or petit larcener, properly is. For, with regard to the female sex, the statutes of William and Mary (before referred to) very anxiously distinguish between the benefit of clergy, which extends only to men, and the benefit of the statute 3 & 4 W. & M. which is allowed to be claimed by women: and the statute of Anne (as is hereafter observed) does not entitle any one to the benefit of clergy but such as were entitled before; as its whole operation is merely to dispense with their reading.
   10.    2 Hal. P. C. 375.
   11.    See note i. [ note 9.]    12.    2 Hal. P. C. 373. 2 Hawk. P. C. 338. Fost. 306.
   13.    2 Hal. P. C. 333.
   14.    1 Hal. P. C. 346.
   15.    Moor. 756. Fost. 288.
   16.    2 Hal. P. C. 330.
   17.    2 Hawk. P. C. 342.
   18.    1 Hal. P. C. 529. Foster. 356.
   19.    2 Hal. P. C. 388.
   20.    2 P. Wms 487.
   21.    2 Hal. P. C. 389. 5 Rep. 110.
   22.    2 Hal. P. C. 389, 390.