ments of justice, are high misprisions and contempts of court, and punishable by fine and imprisonment. And anciently it was held, that if one of the grand jury disclosed to any person indicted the evidence that appeared against him, he was thereby made accessory to the offence, if felony, and in treason a principal. And at this day it is agreed, that he is guilty of a high misprision, and liable to be fined and imprisoned.i 1 Hawk. P. C. 59. VOL. IV. I CHAPTER X. OF OFFENCES AGAINST PUBLIC JUSTICE. THE order of our distribution will next lead us to take into consideration such crimes and misdemeanors us more especially affect the commonwealth, or public polity of the kingdom: which, however, as well as those which are peculiarly pointed out against the lives and security of private subjects, are also offences against the sovereign, as the paterfamilias of the nation: to whom it appertains by his regal office to protect the community, and each individual therein, from every degree of injurious violence, by executing those laws, which the people themselves in conjunction with him have enacted; or at least have consented to, by an agreement either expressly made in the persons of their representatives, or by a tacit and implied consent presumed and proved by immemorial usage. The species of crimes which we have now before us, is subdivided into such a number of inferior and subordinate classes, that it would much exceed the bounds of an elementary treatise, and be insupportably tedious to the reader, were I to examine them all minutely, or with any degree of critical accuracy. I shall therefore confine myself principally to general definitions, or descriptions of this great variety of offences, and to the punishments inflicted by law for each particular offence; with now and then a few incidental observations: referring the student for more particulars to those authors, who have treated of these subjects with greater precision and more in detail, than is consistent with the plan of these commentaries. The crimes and misdemeanors that more especially affect the commonwealth, may be divided into five species; viz., offences against public justice, against the public peace, against public trade, against the public health, and against the public police or economy: of each of which we will take a cursory view in their order. First, then, of offences against public justice: some of which are felonious, others only misdemeanors. I shall begin with those that are most penal, and descend gradually to such as are of less malignity. 1. Embezzling or vacating records, or falsifying certain other proceedings in a court of judicature, is a felonious offence against public justice. It was enacted by statute 8 Hen. VI. c. 12, that if any clerk, or other person, should wilfully take away, withdraw, or avoid any record, or process in the superior courts of justice in Westminster Hall, by reason whereof the judgment should be reversed or not take effect, it should be felony, not only in the principal actors, but also in their procurers and abettors. "This act, which extended only to the courts expressly mentioned in it, and to the court of Chancery so far as it proceeded according to the rules of the common law, has been repealed; but its provisions, so far as relates to this offence, were at the same time re-enacted and extended.a And now any person who steals, or for any fraudulent purpose removes from its place of deposit, or obliterates, injures, or destroys any record, writ, affidavit, rule, order, or other document relating to any court of law or equity, is guilty of felony, and may be kept in penal servitude for five years, or imprisoned, with or without hard labour and solitary confinement, for a term not exceeding two years.' "b By statute 21 Jac. I. c. 26, to acknowledge any fine, recovery, deed enrolled, statute, recognizance, bail, or judgment, in the name of another person not privy to the same, was felony without benefit of clergy: 'but the punishment for offences of this nature has been reduced to penal servitude or imprisonment. And as the statute extended' only to proceedings in the courts themselves, 'its provisions have been enlarged, first by the statute 4 W. & M. c. 4, and finally by 24 and 25 Vict. c. 98, s. 34. To personate any other person as bail is now felony, and is punishable by penal servitude for seven or not less than five years, or imprisonment, with or without hard labour and solitary confinement, for a term not exceeding three years.' No man's property would be safe, if records might be suppressed or falsified, or persons' names be falsely usurped in courts, a 7 & 8 Geo. IV. cc. 27, 29. b 24 & 25 Vict. c. 96, s. 30; 27 & 28 Vict. c. 47. or before their public officers. And a variety of statutes have accordingly provided for the punishment of the crime of forging official documents: the earliest of which was the statute 8 Ric. II. c. 4, which imposed penalties for making false entries in records. Passing over the intervening enactments, it may be sufficient to observe that the law on this subject was consolidated and extended by the statute 24 & 25 Vict. c. 98, which contains elaborate provisions against the forgery, alteration, or uttering of false official or public documents; these offences being in all cases felony, and punishable with long periods of penal servitude, or imprisonment accompanied at the discretion of the court with hard labour and solitary confinement. The forging of the seals or of the signatures of the judges, commissioners, registrars, and other officers of our other courts of justice is in general punishable, under particular statutes, in the same way; and so, indeed, is the forgery of the seals or signatures to foreign and colonial acts of state, or to the judgments, orders, or other judicial proceedings of any court of justice in any foreign state or British colony.' 2. A second offence against public justice is obstructing the execution of lawful process. This is at all times an offence of a very high and presumptuous nature; but more particularly so, when it is an obstruction of an arrest upon criminal process. And it has been held, that the party opposing such arrest becomes thereby particeps criminis; that is, an accessory in felony, and a principal in high treason. Formerly one of the greatest obstructions to public justice, both of the civil and criminal kind, was the multitude of pretended privileged places where indigent persons assembled together to shelter themselves from justice, especially in London and South e Sir William Blackstone here adds that, to prevent abuses by the extensive power which the law is obliged to repose in gaolers, it was enacted by stat. 14 Edw. III. c. 10, that if any gaoler, by too great duress of imprisonment, made any prisoner that he had in ward become an approver or an appellor against his will, that is, to accuse and turn evidence against some other person, it was felony in the gaoler. For, as Sir Edward Coke observes, 3 Inst. 91, it is not lawful to wark, under the pretext of their having been ancient palaces of the Crown, or the like: all of which sanctuaries for iniquity are now demolished. The opposing of any process therein was made highly penal by the statutes 8 & 9 Will. III. c. 27, 9 Geo. I. c. 28, and 11 Geo. I. c. 22; 'but the extreme penalty thereby imposed was subsequently taken away." And now any assault upon, resistance to, or wilful obstruction of, a peace officer in the execution of his duty, or any person acting in his aid, with intent to resist or prevent the apprehension of the party so assaulting or of any other person, is a misdemeanor, and subjects the offender to imprisonment, with or without hard labour, for any term not exceeding two years; and the court may, if it think fit, also inflict a fine, and require the offender to find sureties of the peace. If, however, the resistance exceeds an ordinary assault, it then becomes more penal; for any person who shoots or attempts to discharge loaded arms at, or causes bodily harm to, or wounds any person, with intent to resist the lawful apprehension or detainer of any person, is guilty of felony, and punishable with penal servitude for life or not less than five years, or imprisonment, with or without hard labour and solitary confinement, for any term not exceeding two years.' h 3. An escape of a person arrested upon criminal process, by eluding the vigilance of his keepers before he is put in hold, is also an offence against public justice, and the party himself is punishable by fine or imprisonment.' But the officer permitting such escape, either by negligence or connivance, is much more culpable than the prisoner; the natural desire of liberty pleading strongly in his behalf, though he ought in strictness of law to submit himself quietly to custody, till cleared by the due course of justice. Officers therefore who, after arrest, negligently permit a felon to escape, are also punishable by fine: but voluntary escapes, by consent and connivance of the officer, are a much more serious offence: for it is generally agreed that such escapes amount to the same kind of offence, and are punishable in the same degree as the offence of which the prisoner is guilty, and for which he is in custody, whether treason, felony, or trespass. And this whether f Such as Whitefriars, the Savoy, and the Mint in Southwark. 1 Geo. IV. c. 116. h 9 Geo. IV. c. 31, s. 25; 7 Will. IV. and 1 Vict. c. 85, ss. 4, 8; 9 & 10 Vict. c. 24, s. 1; 20 & 21 Vict. c. 3; 24 & 25 i 2 Hawk. P. C. 122. |