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Timestamp: 2019-04-25 12:17:02+00:00

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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.
be used for private lucre, than the quiet and just proceeding of law would permit.
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.
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 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.
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 , 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 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.
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.
2. See Vol. III. pag. 406.
3. 2 Hal. P. C. 193.
4. Stat. 1 W. & M. St. 2. c. 2.
7. Glanv. l. 9. c. 8 & 11.
8. Gilb. Exch. c. 5.
9. Mirr. c. 5. § 3. Lamb. Eirenarch. 575.
12. Co. Litt. 392. 3 Inst. 19. 1 Hal. P. C. 240. 2 Hawk. P. C. 448.
14. 1 Hal. P. C. 359.
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.
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.
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.
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.

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