Amendment VIII

Document 4

William Blackstone, Commentaries 4:293--97, 369--74

The justice, before whom such prisoner is brought, is bound immediately to examine the circumstances of the crime alleged: and to this end by statute 2 & 3 Ph. & M. c. 10. he is to take in writing the examination of such prisoner, and the information of those who bring him: which, Mr. Lambard observes, was the first warrant given for the examination of a felon in the English law. For, at the common law, nemo tenebatur prodere seipsum; and his fault was not be wrung out of himself, but rather to be discovered by other means, and other men. If upon this enquiry it manifestly appears, either that no such crime was committed, or that the suspicion entertained of the prisoner was wholly groundless, in such cases only it is lawful totally to discharge him. Otherwise he must either be committed to prison, or give bail; that is, put in securities for his appearance, to answer the charge against him. This commitment therefore being only for safe custody, wherever bail will answer the same intention, it ought to be taken; as in most of the inferior crimes: but in felonies, and other offences of a capital nature, no bail can be a security equivalent to the actual custody of the person. For what is there that a man may not be induced to forfeit, to save his own life? and what satisfaction or indemnity is it to the public, to seize the effects of them who have bailed a murderer, if the murderer himself be suffered to escape with impunity? Upon a principle similar to which, the Athenian magistrates, when they took a solemn oath, never to keep a citizen in bonds that could give three sureties of the same quality with himself, did it with an exception to such as had embezzled the public money, or been guilty of treasonable practices. What the nature of bail is, hath been shown in the preceding book; viz. a delivery, or bailment, of a person to his sureties, upon their giving (together with himself) sufficient security for his appearance: he being supposed to continue in their friendly custody, instead of going to gaol. In civil cases we have seen that every defendant is bailable; but in criminal matters it is otherwise. Let us therefore enquire, in what cases the party accused ought, or ought not, to be admitted to bail.

And, first, to refuse or delay to bail any person bailable, is an offence against the liberty of the subject, in any magistrate, by the common law; as well as by the statute Westm. 1. 3 Edw. I. c. 15. and the habeas corpus act, 31 Car. II. c. 2. And lest the intention of the law should be frustrated by the justices requiring bail to a greater amount than the nature of the case demands, it is expressly declared [Volume 5, Page 371] by statute 1 W. & M. st. 2. c. 1. that excessive bail ought not to be required: though what bail shall be called excessive, must be left to the courts, on considering the circumstances of the case, to determine. And on the other hand, if the magistrate takes insufficient bail, he is liable to be fined, if the criminal doth not appear. Bail may be taken either in court, or in some particular cases by the sheriff, coroner, or other magistrate; but most usually by the justices of the peace. Regularly, in all offences either against the common law or act of parliament, that are below felony, the offender ought to be admitted to bail, unless it be prohibited by some special act of parliament. In order therefore more precisely to ascertain what offences are bailable.

Let us next see, who may not be admitted to bail, or, what offences are not bailable. And here I shall not consider any one of those cases in which bail is ousted by statute, from prisoners convicted of particular offences; for then such imprisonment without bail is part of their sentence and punishment. But, where the imprisonment is only for safe custody before the conviction, and not for punishment afterwards, in such cases bail is ousted or taken away, wherever the offence is of a very enormous nature: for then the public is entitled to demand nothing less than the highest security that can be given; viz. the body of the accused, in order to ensure that justice shall be done upon him, if guilty. Such persons therefore, as the author of the mirror observes, have no other sureties but the four walls of the prison. By the antient common law, before and since the conquest, all felonies were bailable, till murder was excepted by statute: so that persons might be admitted to bail before conviction almost in every case. But the statute Westm. 1. 3 Edw. I. c. 15. takes away the power of bailing in treason, and in divers instances of felony. The statute 1 & 2 Ph. & Mar. c. 13. gives farther regulations in this matter: and upon the whole we may collect, that no justices of the peace can bail, 1. Upon an accusation of treason: nor, 2. Of murder: nor, 3. In case of manslaughter, if the prisoner be clearly the slayer, and not barely suspected to be so; or if any indictment be found against him: nor, 4. Such as, being committed for felony, have broken prison; because it not only carries a presumption of guilt, but is also superadding one felony to another: 5. Persons outlawed: 6. Such as have abjured the realm: 7. Approvers, of whom we shall speak in a subsequent chapter, and persons by them accused: 8. Persons taken with the mainour, or in the fact of felony: 9. Persons charged with arson: 10. Excommunicated persons, taken by writ de excommunicato capiendo: all which are clearly not admissible to bail. Others are of a dubious nature, as, 11. Thieves openly defamed and known: 12. Persons charged with other felonies, or manifest and enormous offences, not being of good fame: and 13. Accessories to felony, that labour under the same want of reputation. These seem to be in the discretion of the justices, whether bailable or not. The last class are such as must be bailed upon offering sufficient surety; as, 14. Persons of good fame, charged with a bare suspicion of manslaughter, or other inferior homicide: 15. Such persons being charged with petit larciny or any felony, not before specified: or, 16. With being accessory to any felony. Lastly it is agreed that the court of king's bench (or any judge thereof in time of vacation) may bail for any crime whatsoever, be it treason, murder, or any other offence, according to the circumstances of the case. And herein the wisdom of the law is very manifest. To allow bail to be taken commonly for such enormous crimes, would greatly tend to elude the public justice: and yet there are cases, though they rarely happen, in which it would be hard and unjust to confine a man in prison, though accused even of the greatest offence. The law has therefore provided one court, and only one, which has a discretionary power of bailing in any case: except only, even to this high jurisdiction, and of course to all inferior ones, such persons as are committed by either house of parliament, so long as the session lasts; or such as are committed for contempts by any of the king's superior courts of justice.

Upon the whole, if the offence be not bailable, or the party cannot find bail, he is to be committed to the county gaol by the mittimus of the justice, or warrant under his hand and seal, containing the cause of his commitment; there to abide till delivered by due course of law. But this imprisonment, as has been said, is only for safe custody, and not for punishment: therefore, in this dubious interval between the commitment and trial, a prisoner ought to be used with the utmost humanity; and neither be loaded with needless fetters, or subjected to other hardships than such as are absolutely requisite for the purpose of confinement only: though what are so requisite, must too often be left to the discretion of the gaolers; who are frequently a merciless race of men, and, by being conversant in scenes of misery, steeled against any tender sensation. Yet the law will not justify them in fettering a prisoner, unless where he is unruly, or has attempted an escape: this being the humane language of our antient lawgivers, "custodes poenam sibi commissorum non augeant, nec eos torqueant; sed omni saevitia remota, pietateque adhibita, judicia debite exequantur."

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If all these resources fail, the court must pronounce that judgment, which the law hath annexed to the crime, and which hath 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 kinds, being drawn or dragged to the place of execution; in high treason affecting the king's person or government, embowelling 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 savour of torture or cruelty: a sledge 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 embowelled or burned, till previously [Volume 5, Page 372] 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 labour 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 honour 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 offence; 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 humour 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.

The discretionary fines and discretionary length of imprisonment, which our courts are enabled to impose, may seem an exception to this rule. But the general nature of the punishment, viz. by fine or imprisonment, is in these cases fixed and determinate: though the duration and quantity of each must frequently vary, from the aggravations or otherwise of the offence, the quality and condition of the parties, and from innumerable other circumstances. The quantum, in particular, of pecuniary fines neither can, nor ought to be, ascertained by any invariable law. The value of money itself changes from a thousand causes; and, at all events, what is ruin to one man's fortune, may be matter of indifference to another's. Thus the law of the twelve tables at Rome fined every person, that struck another, five and twenty denarii: this, in the more opulent days of the empire, grew to be a punishment of so little consideration, that Aulus Gellius tells a story of one Lucius Neratius, who made it his diversion to give a blow to whomever he pleased, and then tender them the legal forfeiture. Our statute law has not therefore often ascertained the quantity of fines, nor the common law ever; it directing such an offence to be punished by fine, in general, without specifying the certain sum: which is fully sufficient, when we consider, that however unlimited the power of the court may seem, it is far from being wholly arbitrary; but it's discretion is regulated by law. For the bill of rights has particularly declared, that excessive fines ought not to be imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted: (which had a retrospect to some unprecedented proceedings in the court of king's bench, in the reign of king James the second) and the same statute farther declares, that all grants and promises of fines and forfeitures of particular persons, before conviction, are illegal and void. Now the bill of rights was only declaratory, throughout, of the old constitutional law of the land: and accordingly we find it expressly holden, long before, that all such previous grants are void; since thereby many times undue means, and more violent prosecution, would be used for private lucre, than the quiet and just proceeding of law would permit.

The reasonableness of fines in criminal cases has also been usually regulated by the determination of magna carta, concerning amercements for misbehaviour in matters of civil right. "Liber homo non amercietur pro parvo delicto, nisi secundum modum ipsius delicti; et pro magno delicto, secundum magnitudinem delicti; salvo contenemento suo: et mercator eodem modo, salva mercandisa sua; et villanus eodem modo amercietur, salvo wainagio suo." A rule, that obtained even in Henry the second's time, and means only, that no man shall have a larger amercement inposed upon him, than his circumstances or personal estate will bear: saving to the landholder his contenement, or land; to the trader his merchandize; and to the countryman his wainage, or team and instruments of husbandry. In order to ascertain which, the great charter also directs, that the amercement, which is always inflicted in general terms ("Sit in misericordia") shall be set, ponatur, or reduced to a certainty, by the oath of a jury. This method, of liquidating the amercement to a precise sum, is usually done in the court-leet and court-baron by affeerors, or jurors sworn to affeere, that is, tax and moderate, the general amercement according to the particular circumstances of the offence and the offender. In imitation of which, in courts superior to these, the antient practice was to enquire by a jury, when a fine was imposed upon any man, "quantum inde regi dare valeat per annum, salva sustentatione sua, et uxoris, et liberorum suorum." And, since the disuse of such inquest, it is never usual to assess a larger fine than a man is able to pay, without touching the implements of his livelyhood; but to inflict corporal punishment, or a stated imprisonment, which is better than an excessive fine, for that amounts to imprisonment for life. And this is the reason why fines in the king's court are frequently denominated ransoms, because the penalty must otherwise fall upon a man's person, unless it be redeemed or ransomed by a pecuniary fine: according to an antient maxim, qui non habet in crumena luat [Volume 5, Page 373] in corpore. Yet, where any statute speaks both of fine and ransom, it is holden, that the ransom shall be treble to the fine at least.

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 it's 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. 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 any thing to be said in his favour. 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 Founders' Constitution
Volume 5, Amendment VIII, Document 4
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendVIIIs4.html
The University of Chicago Press

Blackstone, William. Commentaries on the Laws of England: A Facsimile of the First Edition of 1765--1769. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979.