Opinion ID: 98794
Heading Depth: 1
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Heading: Ex mandato regis.

Text: II. Ex arbitrio judicis. Sometimes the judge reprieves before judgment, as where he is not satisfied with the verdict, or the evidence is uncertain, or the indictment insufficient, or doubtful whether within clergy; and sometimes after judgment, if it be a small felony, tho out of clergy, or in order to a pardon or transportation. Crompt. Just. 22, b. and these arbitrary reprieves may be granted or taken off by the justices of gaol-delivery, altho their sessions be adjourned or finished, and this by reason of common usage. Dy. 205 a. III. Ex necessitate legis, which is in case of pregnancy, where a woman is convict of felony or treason. Blackstone thus expresses it: 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; 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 offence be within clergy; or sometimes if it be a small felony, or any favourable 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 goal delivery, although their session be finished, and their commission expired: but this rather by common usage, than of strict right. Reprieve may also be ex necessitate legis: 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.  (Book IV, ch. xxxi, pp. 394-395.) While it may not be doubted under the common law as thus stated that courts possessed and asserted the right to exert judicial discretion in the enforcement of the law to temporarily suspend either the imposition of sentence or its execution when imposed to the end that pardon might be procured or that a violation of law in other respects might be prevented, we are unable to perceive any ground for sustaining the proposition that at common law the courts possessed or claimed the right which is here insisted upon. No elaboration could make this plainer than does the text of the passages quoted. It is true that, owing to the want of power in common law courts to grant new trials and to the absence of a right to review convictions in a higher court, it is we think to be conceded: (a) That both suspensions of sentence and suspensions of the enforcement of sentence, temporary in character, were often resorted to on grounds of error or miscarriage of justice which under our system would be corrected either by new trials or by the exercise of the power to review. (b) That not infrequently, where the suspension either of the imposition of a sentence or of its execution was made for the purpose of enabling a pardon to be sought or bestowed, by a failure to further proceed in the criminal cause in the future, although no pardon had been sought or obtained, the punishment fixed by law was escaped. But neither of these conditions serves to convert the mere exercise of a judicial discretion to temporarily suspend for the accomplishment of a purpose contemplated by law into the existence of an arbitrary judicial power to permanently refuse to enforce the law. And we can deduce no support for the contrary contention from the rulings in 2 Dyer, 165a, 205a and 235a, since those cases but illustrate the exercise of the conceded, reasonable, discretionary power to reprieve to enable a lawful end to be attained. Nor from the fact that common law courts possessed the power by recognizances to secure good behavior, that is, to enforce the law, do we think any support is afforded for the proposition that those courts possessed the arbitrary discretion to permanently decline to enforce the law. The cases of Rex v. Hart, 30 How. State Trials, 1344, and Regina v. Dunn, 12 Q.B. 1026, 1041, certainly do not tend to so establish, since they simply manifest the exertion of the power of the courts after a conviction and the suffering of the legal penalty to exact from the convicted person a bond for his good behavior thereafter. 3. The support for the power asserted claimed to be derived from the adjudication of state and federal courts. Coming first to the state courts, undoubtedly there is conflict in the decisions. The area, however, of conflict will be narrowed by briefly stating and contrasting the cases. We shall do so by referring chronologically to the cases denying the power, and then to those relied upon to establish it. In 1838 the Supreme Court of North Carolina in State v. Bennett, 4 Dev. & Battle's Law, 43, was called upon to decide whether a trial court had the right to permanently remit upon condition a part of a criminal sentence fixed by statute. The court said: We know that a practice has prevailed to some extent of inflicting fines with the provision that they should be diminished or remitted altogether upon matter thereafter to be done, or shown to the Court by the person convicted. But we can find no authority in law for this practice, and feel ourselves bound, upon this first occasion when it is brought judicially to our notice, to declare it illegal. In 1860 in People v. Morrisette, 20 How. Pr. 118, an accused after pleading guilty asked a suspension of sentence and to be then discharged from custody. The court said: I am of the opinion the court does not possess the power to suspend sentence indefinitely in any case. As I understand the law, it is the duty of the court, unless application be made for a new trial, or a motion in arrest of judgment be made for some defect in the indictment, to pronounce judgment upon every prisoner convicted of crime by a jury, or who pleads guilty. An indefinite suspension of the sentence prescribed by law is a quasi pardon, provided the prisoner be discharged from imprisonment. No court in the state has any pardoning power. That power is vested exclusively in the governor.