# United States Statutes at Large/Volume 5/27th Congress/3rd Session/Chapter 98

Chap. XCVIII.—An Act to amend the laws regulating imprisonment for debt within the District of Columbia.
1853, ch. 40. 1812, ch. 106. No person to be imprisoned upon a judgm’t from which an appeal, &c. is taken until one year after such appeal, &c. has been finally disposed of.Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That from and after the passage of this act, nothing in the third section of the act entitled “An act to amend the laws within the District of Columbia,” approved June twenty-fourth, one thousand eight hundred and twelve, shall be so construed as to authorize the recommitment to close jail and confinement, or to deny the benefit of the prison rules to any person imprisoned within the prison bounds of any prison within the said District for debt, being charged in execution issued upon a judgment from which an appeal has been taken and remains undecided, or upon which any writ of error has been sued out and is depending and not finally disposed of, until one year from and after the day upon which every such appeal from, or writ of error upon, such judgment shall have been finally disposed of, and the judgment shall thus have become final and conclusive; but every person so imprisoned within the said District for debt, upon an execution issued upon any judgment thus situated, shall be entitled to the prison rules and to the limits of the liberties of the jail, or prison, to which he may have been, or may be, so committed, until the expiration of one year from and after the day of the final decision upon, and termination of, any such appeal, or writ of error, or any other proceeding at law or in equity, by whatever term designated, having for its object a review of the judgment upon which such debtor is, or may be, charged in execution:Proviso. Provided, always, That every such debtor now in prison within the said District, shall, before the expiration of the bond under which he is now permitted to go at large within the prison bounds, execute and deliver to the marshal, or sheriff, or other officer to whose custody he has been thus committed, a new bond, with good and sufficient sureties, in the penalty of twice the amount of the judgment upon which he is charged in execution, and conditioned that he will remain a true and faithful prisoner within the bounds of the prison to which he has been committed, and will not depart thence until discharge therefrom by due course of law; and every debtor hereafter to be committed within the said District, charged in execution for debt under the circumstances provided for in this act shall, before being entitled to the prison rules as hereinbefore provided, cause to be executed and deliver to the marshal, or sheriff, or other proper officer, a like bond with sureties, in a like penalty, and with a like condition.
No alteration to be made in the present prison bounds.Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That it shall not be lawful, in any manner, nor by virtue of any law now existing, as to any prisoner now in confinement under circumstances such as are contemplated and provided for by the first section of this act, or as to any person who may hereafter be confined under such circumstances, to make any alteration in the prison bounds as they existed and were marked and laid out when such prisoner was committed upon the execution under which he remains charged, but the limits of the liberties of his prison shall, to every such prisoner, be what they were at the time of his commitment; and the sixteenth section of the act entitled16th sec. act 3d March 1803, ch. 31, for relief of insolvent debtors, modified. “An act for the relief of insolvent debtors within the District of Columbia,” approved March the third, one thousand eight hundred and three, shall be, and the same is hereby, so far modified as to conform to the provisions of this section of this act.
Females not to be imprisoned.Sec. 3. And be it further enacted, That no female shall be imprisoned for debt upon mesne or final process.
Approved, March 3, 1843.