Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1869 edition. Excerpt: ... able and warranted by the Habeas Corpus Act, 31 Car. II. c. 2, s. 14. When once granted, it may either be pleaded upon arraignment, or in arrest of judgment, or in bar of execution; and the effect of it is to make the offender a new man; to acquit him of all corporal penalties and forfeitures annexed to that offence for which he obtains his pardon; and to give him a new credit and capacity. CHAPTER XXX. OF EXECUTION There now remains nothing to speak of but execution, the completion of human punishment And this, in all cases, as well capital as otherwise, must be performed by the legal officer, the sheriff or his deputy; whose warrant for so doing was anciently by precept under the hand and seal of the judge, as it is still practised in the court of the lord high steward, upon the execution of a peer, though in the court of the peers in parliament, it is done by writ from the crown. Afterwards it was established, that in case of life, the judge may command execution to be done without any writ. And now the usage is, for the judge to sign the calendar, or list of all the prisoners' names, with their separate judgments in the margin, which is left with the sheriff. As for a capital felony, it is written opposite to the prisoner's name, " let him be hanged by the neck;" formerly, in the days of Latin and abbreviation, sus. per coll." for "suspendatur per collum." And this is the only warrant that the sheriff has for so material an act as taking away the life of another. The sheriff is to do execution within a convenient time; the time and place of execution being by law no part of the judgment, whether for murder or any other offence. It has been well observed, that it is of great importance that the punishment should follow the crime as...
