CHAPTER XIX. OF COURTS OF A CRIMINAL JURISDICTION. *THE sixth, and last, object of our inquiries will be the method of inflicting those punishments which the law has annexed to particular of- [*258 fences; and which I have constantly subjoined to the description of the crime itself. In the discussion of which I shall pursue much the same general method that I followed in the preceding book with regard to the redress of civil injuries: by, first, pointing out the several courts of criminal jurisdiction, wherein offenders may be prosecuted to punishment; and by, secondly, deducing down in their natural order, and explaining, the several proceedings therein. First, then, in reckoning up the several courts of criminal jurisdiction, I shall, as in the former case, begin with an account of such as are of a public and general jurisdiction throughout the whole realm, and afterwards proceed to such as are only of a private and special jurisdiction, and confined to some particular parts of the kingdom. I. In our inquiries into the criminal courts of public and general jurisdiction I must in one respect pursue a different order from that in which I considered the civil tribunals. For there, as the several courts had a gradual subordination to each other, the superior correcting and reforming the errors of the inferior, I thought it best to begin with the lowest, and so ascend gradually to the courts of appeal, or those of *the most extensive powers. But as it [*259 is contrary to the genius and spirit of the law of England to suffer any man to be tried twice for the same offence in a criminal way, especially if acquitted upon the first trial, therefore these criminal courts may be said to be all independent of each other, at least so far as that the sentence of the lowest of them can never be controlled or reversed by the highest jurisdiction in the kingdom, unless for error in matter of law apparent upon the face of the record; though sometimes causes may be removed from one to the other beforo trial. And therefore, as in these courts of criminal cognizance there is not the same chain and dependence as in the others, I shall rank them according to their dignity, and begin with the highest of all; viz., 1. The high court of parliament, which is the supreme court in the kingdom, not only for the making but also for the execution of laws, by the trial of great and enormous offenders, whether lords or commoners, in the method of parliamentary impeachment. As for acts of parliament to attaint particular persons of treason or felony, or to inflict pains and penalties beyond or contrary to the common law, to serve a special purpose, I speak not of them, being to all intents and purposes new laws, made pro re nata, and by no means an execution of such as are already in being. But an impeachment before the lords by the commons of Great Britain, in parliament, is a prosecution of the already known and established law, and has been frequently put in practice; being a presentment to the most high and supreme court of criminal jurisdiction by the most solemn grand inquest of the whole kingdom. (a) A commoner cannot, however, be impeached before the lords for any capital offence, but only for high misdemeanours.(b)1 A peer may be impeached for any *crime: and they usually (in case of an impeachment of a peer for treason) address the (a) 1 Hal. P. C. 159. (8) When (in 4 Edw. III.) the king demanded the earls, barons, and peers to give judgment against Simon de Bereford, who had been a notorious accomplice in the treasons of Roger, earl of Mortimer, they came before the king in parliament, and said all, with one voice, that the said Simon was not their peer, and therefore they were not bound to judge him as a peer of the land. And when afterwards, in [*260 the same parliament, they were prevailed upon, in respect of the notoriety and heinousness of his crimes, to receive the charge and to give judgment against him, the following protest and proviso was entered in the parliament-roll:And it is assented and accorded by our lord the king, and all the great men, in full parliament, that albeit the peers, as judges of the parliament, have taken upon them, in the presence of our lord the king, to make and render the said 1 For misdemeanours, as libels, riots, &c., peers are to be tried, like commoners, by jury; for, at the common law, in these four cases only, a peer shall be tried by his crown to appoint a lord high steward for the greater dignity and regularity of their proceedings, which high steward was formerly elected by the peers themselves, though he was generally commissioned by the king; (c) but it hath of late years been strenuously maintained(d) that the appointment of a high steward in such cases is not indispensably necessary, but that the house may proceed without one. The articles of impeachment are a kind of bills of indictment found by the house of commons, and afterwards tried by the lords, who are, in cases of misdemeanours, considered not only as their own peers, but as the peers of the whole nation. This is a custom derived to us from the constitution of the antient Germans, who, in their great councils, sometimes tried capital accusations relating to the public: "licet apud consilium accusare quoque, et discrimen capitis intendere."(e) And it has a peculiar propriety in the English constitution, which has much improved upon the antient model imported hither from the continent. For, though in general the union of the legislative and judicial powers ought to be more carefully avoided,(f) yet it may happen that a subject intrusted with the administration of public affairs may infringe the rights of the people, and be guilty of such crimes as the ordinary magistrate either *261] *dares not or cannot punish. Of these the representatives of the people or house of commons cannot properly judge, because their constituents are the parties injured, and can therefore only impeach. But before what court shall this impeachment be tried? Not before the ordinary tribunals, which would naturally be swayed by the authority of so powerful an accuser. Reason, therefore, will suggest that this branch of the legislature, which represents the people, must bring its charge before the other branch, which consists of the nobility, who have neither the same interests nor the same passions as popular assemblies.(g) This is a vast superiority which the constitution of this island enjoys over those of the Grecian or Roman republics, where the people were at the judgment, yet the peers who now are, or shall be in time to come, be not bound or charged to render judgment upon cthers than peers; nor that the peers of the land have power to do this, but thereof ought ever to be discharged and acquitted; and that the aforesaid judgment now rendered be not drawn to example or consequence in time to come, whereby the said peers may be charged hereafter to judge others than their peers, contrary to the laws of the land, if the like case happen, which God forbid." Rot. Parl. 4 Edw. III. n. 2 and 6. 2 Brad. Hist. 190. Selden, Judic. in Parl. ch. 1. (e) 1 Hal. P. C. 350. (d) Lords' Jour. May 12, 1679. Com. Jour. May 15, 1679. Foster. 142, &c. () Tacit. de Mor. Germ. 12. peers,-viz., in treason, felony, misprision of treason, and misprision of felony; and the statute law which gives such trial hath reference unto these or to other offences made treason or felony. His trial by his peers shall be as before; and to this effect are all these statutes, viz., 32 Hen. VIII. c. 4, Rastall, 404, pl. 10. 33 Hen. VIII. c. 12, Rastall, 415. 35 Hen. VIII. c. 2, Rastall, 416; and in all these express mention is made of trial by peers. But in this case of a pramunire, the same being only in effect but a contempt, no trial shall be here in this of a peer by his peers." Per Fleming, C. J., assented to by the whole court, in Rex vs. Lord Vaux, 1 Bulstr. 197.-CHITTY. But, according to the last resolution of the house of lords, a commoner may be impeached for a capital offence. On the 26th of March, 1680, Edward Fitzharris, a commoner, was impeached by the commons of high treason; upon which the attorney general acquainted the peers that he had an order from the king to prosecute Fitzharris by indictment; and a question thereupon was put whether he should be proceeded against according to the course of the common law, or by way of impeachment, and it was resolved against proceeding in the impeachment. 13 Lords' Jour. p. 755. Fitzharris was afterwards prosecuted by indictment, and he pleaded in abatement that there was an impeachment pending against him for the same offence; but this plea was over ruled, and he was convicted and executed. But on the 26th of June, 1689, Sir Adam Blair and four other commoners were impeached for high treason, in having published a proclamation of James the Second. On the 2d of July a long report of precedents was produced, and a question was put to the judges whether the record 4 Edw. III, No. 6 was a statute. They answered, as it appeared to them by the copy, they believed it to be a statute, but if they saw the roll itself they could be more positive. It was then moved to ask the judges-but the motion was negatived--whether by this record the lords were barred from trying a commoner for a capital crime upon an impeachment of the commons; and they immediately resolved to proceed in this impeachment, notwithstanding the parties were commoners and charged with high treason. 14 Lords' Jour. p. 260. But the impeachment was not prosec.ted with effect, on account of an inter vening dissolution of parlament -CHRISTIAN. same time both judges and accusers. It is proper that the nobility should judge, to insure justice to the accused, as it is proper that the people should accuse, to insure justice to the commonwealth. And therefore, among other extraordinary circumstances attending the authority of this court, there is one of a very singular nature, which was insisted on by the house of commons in the case of the earl of Danby, in the reign of Charles II.;(h) and it is now enacted, by statute 12 & 13 W. III. c. 2, that no pardon under the great seal shall be pleadable to an impeachment by the commons of Great Britain in parliament.(i) 2. The court of the lord high steward of Great Britain(k) is a court instituted for the trial of peers indicted for treason or felony, or for misprision of either.(1) The office of this great magistrate is very antient, and was formerly hereditary, or at least held for life, or dum bene se gesserit: but now it is usually, and hath been for many centuries past, (m) granted pro hac vice only; and it hath been the constant practice (and therefore seems now to have become necessary) to grant *it to a lord of parliament, else he is incapable to try such delinquent [*262 peer.(n) When such an indictment is therefore found by a grand jury of freeholders in the king's bench, or at the assizes before the justices of oyer and terminer, it is to be removed by a writ of certiorari into the court of the lord high steward, which only has power to determine it. A peer may plead a pardon before the court of king's bench, and the judges have power to allow it, in order to prevent the trouble of appointing a high steward merely for the purpose of receiving such plea. But he may not plead in that inferior court any other plea, as guilty or not guilty of the indictment, but only in this court; because, in consequence of such plea, it is possible that judgment of death might be awarded against him. The king, therefore, in case a peer be indicted for treason, felony, or misprision, creates a lord high steward pro hac vice, by commission under the great seal, which recites the indictment so found, and gives his grace power to receive and try it secundum legem et consuetudinem Angliæ. Then, when the indictment is regularly removed by writ of certiorari, commanding the inferior court to certify it up to him, the lord high steward directs a precept to a serjeantat-arms to summon the lords to attend and try the indicted peer. This precept was formerly issued to summon only eighteen or twenty, selected from the body of the peers: then the number came to be indefinite, and the custom was for the lord high steward to summon as many as he thought proper, (but of late years not less than twenty-three,)(o) and that those lords only should sit upon the trial; which threw a monstrous weight of power into the hands of the crown and this its great officer of selecting only such peers as the then predominant party should most approve of. And accordingly, when the earl of Clarendon fell into disgrace with Charles II., *there was a design formed to pro[*263 rogue the parliament, in order to try him by a select number of peers, it being doubted whether the whole house could be induced to fall in with the views of the court. (p) But now, by statute 7 W. III. c. 3, upon all trials of peers for treason or misprision, all the peers who have a right to sit and vote in parliament shall be summoned at least twenty days before such trial to appear and vote therein; and every lord appearing shall vote in the trial of such peer, first taking the oaths of allegiance and supremacy and subscribing the declaration against popery. During the session of parliament the trial of an indicted peer is not properly in the court of the lord high steward, but before the court last mentioned,-of our lord the king in parliament.(q) It is true, a lord high steward is always 'The decision is by a majority; but a majority cannot convict unless it consists of twelve or more. See ante, book iii. p. 376, note. A peer cannot have the benefit of a challenge like a commoner. 1 Harg. St. Trials, 198, 388.-CHITY. appointed in that case to regulate and add weight to the proceedings; but he is rather in the nature of a speaker pro tempore or thairman of the court than the judge of it; for the collective body of the peers are therein the judges both of law and fact, and the high steward has a vote with the rest, in right of his peerage. But in the court of the lord high steward, which is held in the recess of parliament, he is the sole judge of matters of law, as the lords triors are in matters of fact; and as they may not interfere with him in regulating the proceedings of the court, so he has no right to intermix with them in giving any vote upon the trial.(r) Therefore, upon the conviction and attainder of a peer for murder in full parliament, it hath been holden by the judges(s) that in case the day appointed in the judgment for execution should lapse before execution done, a new time of execution may be appointed by either the high court of parliament during its sitting, though no high steward be existing, or in the recess of parliament by the court of king's bench, the record being removed into that court. *264] *It has been a point of some controversy whether the bishops have now a right to sit in the court of the lord high steward to try indictments of treason and misprision. Some incline to imagine them included under the general words of the statute of king William, "all peers who have a right to sit and vote in parliament;" but the expression had been much clearer if it had been "all lords," and not "all peers;" for though bishops, on account of the baronies annexed to their bishoprics, are clearly lords of parliament, yet, their blood not being ennobled, they are not universally allowed to be peers with the temporal nobility: and perhaps this word might be inserted purposely with a view to exclude them. However, there is no instance of their sitting on trials for capital offences, even upon impeachments or indictments in full parliament, much less in the court we are now treating of; for, indeed, they usually with draw voluntarily, but enter a protest declaring their right to stay. It is observable that, in the eleventh chapter of the constitutions of Clarendon, made in parliament, 11 Hen. II., they are expressly excused, rather than excluded, from sitting and voting in trials when they come to concern life or limb: "episcopi, sicut cæteri barones, debent interesse judiciis cum baronibus, quousque perveniatur ad diminutionem membrorum, vel ad mortem;" and Becket's quarrel with the king hereupon was not on account of the exception, (which was agreeable to the canon law,) but of the general rule that compelled the bishops to attend at all. And the determination of the house of lords in the earl of Danby's case,(t) which hath ever since been adhered to, is consonant to these constitutions: "that the lords spiritual have a right to stay and sit in court in capital cases till the court proceeds to the vote of guilty or not guilty." It must be noted that this resolution extends only to trials in full parliament: for to the court of the lord high steward (in which no vote can be given but merely that of guilty or not guilty) no bishop, as such, ever was or could be summoned; and though the statute of king William *regulates the proceedings in that court as well as in the *265] court of parliament, yet it never intended to new-model or alter its constitution, and consequently does not give the lords spiritual any right in cases of blood which they had not before.(u) And what makes their exclusion more reasonable is, that they have no right to be tried themselves in the court of the lord high steward, (w) and therefore surely ought not to be judges there. For the privilege of being thus tried depends upon nobility of blood rather than a seat in the house, as appears from the trial of popish lords, of lords under age, and (since the union) of the Scots nobility, though not in the number of the sixteen; and from the trials of females, such as the queen consort or dowager, and of all peeresses by birth, and peeresses by marriage also, unless they have, when dowagers, disparaged themselves by taking a commoner to their second busband." State Trials, vol iv. 214, 232, 233. Fost. 139. Lords' Jour. May 15, 1679. *) Fost. 248. But peeresses by marriage cannot be said to be ennobled by blood; for after the death 3. The court of king's bench,(x) concerning the nature of which we partiy inquired in the preceding book,(y) was (we may remember) divided into a crown side and a plea side. And on the crown side or crown office it takes cognizance of all criminal causes, from high treason down to the most trivial misdemeanour or breach of the peace. Into this court also indictments from all inferior courts may be removed by writ of certiorari, and tried either at bar or at nisi prius by a jury of the county out of which the indictment is brought. The judges of his court are the supreme coroners of the kingdom, and the court itself is the principal court of criminal jurisdiction (though the two former are of greater dignity) known to the laws of England. For which reason, by the coming of the court of king's bench into any county, (as it was removed to Oxford on account of the sickness in 1665,) all former commissioners of oyer and terminer and general gaol delivery are at once absorbed and determined ipso facto; In the same manner as, by the old Gothic and Saxon constitutions, [*266 "jure vetusto obtinuit, quievisse omnia inferiora judicia, dicente jus rege.”(z)6 Into this court of king's bench hath reverted all that was good and salutary of the jurisdiction of the court of starchamber, camera stellata,(a)' which was a (*) 4 Inst. 70. 2 Hal. P. C. 2. 2 Hawk. P. C. 6. () See book iii. page 41. Stiernhook, l. 1, c. 2. () This is said (Lamb. Arch. 154) to have been so called either from the Saxon word rteoɲan, to steer or govern,-or from its punishing the crimen stellionatus, or cosenage,—or because the rooms wherein it sat-the old council-chamber of the palace of Westminster, (Lamb. 148,) which is now converted into the lottery-office, and forms the eastern side of New Palace-yard-was full of windows, or (to which Sir Edward Coke (4 Inst. 66) accedes) because haply the roof thereof was at the first garnished with gilded stars. As all these are merely conjectures, (for no stars are now in the roof, nor are any said to have remained there so late as the reign of queen Elizabeth,) it may be allowable to propose another conjectural etymology, as plausible perhaps as any of them. It is well known that before the banishment of the Jews under Edward I. their contracts and obligations were denominated in our ancient records starra or starrs, from a corruption of the Hebrew word shetar, a covenant. Tovey's Angl. Judaic. 32. Selden, tit. of Hon. ii. 34. Uxor. Braic. i. 14. These starrs, by an ordinance of Richard the First, preserved by Hoveden, were commanded to be enrolled and deposited in chests under three keys in certain places,-one and the most considerable of which was in the king's exchequer at Westminster; and no starr was allowed of their husbands they have even a less estate in their nobility than bishops, it being only durante viduitate. See the editor's conjecture how the notion was originally introduced that bishops were not entitled to a trial by the peers in parliament. Book i. p. 401, note. Since that note was written, the editor has been happy in finding what he suggested only as a conjecture drawn from general principles confirmed by the more extensive learning of the late Vinerian professor, Mr. Wooddesson, who not only has adopted the same opinion, but has adduced in confirmation of it several instances of bishops who, being arraigned before a jury, demanded the privileges of the church, and disclaimed the authority of all secular jurisdictions. 2 Woodd. 585.-CHRISTIAN. Without some statute for that purpose, offences committed out of England are not cognizable by this court. 1 Esp. Rep. 62. 1 Sess. Ca. 246. If, however, any part of an offence be completed in Middlesex, though the rest were committed abroad, an indictment lies in this court, or, in case of misdemeanour, an information, if the offence were committed in any other county. 1 Esp. Rep. 63. 2 New Rep. 91. And this though the defendant himself was out of the kingdom at the time, if he caused the offence to be committed here; as where the defendant sent over a libel from Ireland to be published at Westminster. 6 East, 589, 590. Persons in his majesty's service abroad committing offences there may be prosecuted in the King's Bench by indictment or information, laying the venue in Middlesex. 42 Geo. III. c. 85, s. 1. 8 East, 31. So offences committed in the East Indies are subject to this jurisdiction. 24 Geo. III. sess. 2, c. 25, ss. 64, 78, 81. 5 T. R. 607. So if high treason be committed out of the kingdom, it can only be tried in the court of King's Bench, or under a special commission. 32 Hen. VIII. c. 23. 1 Leach, 157. 1 Hale, 1. And this court has jurisdiction by information over offences committed in Berwick. 2 Burr. 860.-CHITTY. 5 All informations filed in the court of King's Bench, and all indictments removed there by certiorari, if not tried at the bar of the court, (which rarely happens,) must be tried by writ of nisi prius.-CHRISTIAN. 6 But, by the 25 Geo. III. c. 18, it is enacted that the session of oyer and terminer and gol-delivery of the gaol of Newgate for the county of Middlesex shall not be discon tinued on account of the commencement of the term, and the sitting of the court of King's Bench at Westminster, but may be continued till the business is concluded. And the 32 Geo. III. c. 48 was passed to continue in like manner the sessions of the peace, and of oyer and terminer, held before the justices of the peace for the county of Middlesex.-CHRISTIAN. In one of the statutes of the University of Cambridge, the antiquity of which is not known, the word starrum is twice used for a schedule or inventory. The statute is entitled De computatione procuratorum; and it directs that in fine computi fiat starrum per |