Case Name: The TERRITORY vs. BENOIT
Court: Superior Court of the Territory of Orleans
Jurisdiction: Louisiana
Decision Date: 1810
Citations: 1 Mart. (o.s.) 142
Docket Number: 
Parties: The TERRITORY vs. BENOIT.
Judges: 
Reporter: Martin (Louisiana Term Reports)
Volume: 1
Pages: 142–143

Head Matter:
The TERRITORY vs. BENOIT.
Fall, 1810.
First District.
One indicted for a capital crime cannot be bailed.
The Grand Jury had found an Indictment against the defendant for an assault with intent to murder, which is a capital offence.
,. ,.. , ,. , , Derbigny moved to have him bailed.

Opinion:
By the Court.
It cannot be done. Bail is never allowed in offences punishable by death, when the proof is evident or the presumption great. On a Coroner's inquest finding a person guilty of a capital crime, the Judges have often looked into the testimony which the Coroner is bound to record, and when they have been of opinion that the jurors had drawn an illogical conclusion, admitted the party to bail. But as the evidence before the Grand Jury is not written and cannot be disclosed, the same discretion and control cannot be exercised, and the judges cannot help considering the finding of the Grand Jury as too great a presumption of the defendant's guilt to bail him. We recollect no case in which it was done.
C. J. Marshall who, on the examination of Aaron Burr, had admitted him to bail, concurred in the opinion of the Court that he was no longer entitled to that indulgence after the Grand Jury found the bill against him.
Bail denied.