High Treason - Law Dictionary Search Results
Home Dictionary Name: high treasonHigh treason
High treason. Since petit treason was abolished by 9 Geo. 4, c. 31, s. 2, the correlative term high is not now usually retained when speaking of this highest civil crime. It is merely denominated treason. See TREASON....
High Steward, Court of the Lord
High Steward, Court of the Lord, a tribunal instituted for the trial of peers or peeresses indicted for treason or felony, or for misprision of either, but not for any other offence. The office of Lord High Steward is very ancient, and was formerly hereditary, or held for life, or dum bene se gesserit; but it has been for many centuries granted pro hac vice only, and always to a lord of Parliament. When, therefore, such an indictment is found by a grand jury of freeholders in the King's Bench, or at the assizes before a judge of oyer and terminer, it is removed by a writ of certiorari into the Court of the Lord High Steward, which alone has power to determine it.The sovereign, in case a peer be indicted for treason, felony, or misprision, appoints a Lord High Ste-ward pro vice, by commission under the Great Seal, which, reciting the indictment so found, gives him power to receive and try it secundum legem et consuetudinem Angli'. When the indictment is regularly removed by certiorari, ...
Constructive treason
Constructive treason, an attempt to establish treason by circumstantiality and not by the simple genuine letter of the law, and therefore highly dangerous to public freedom, Erskine's Defence of Lord George Gordon; 3 Hall, Const. Hit. c. xv. See TREASON....
Prerogative of mercy
Prerogative of mercy. In early times the operation of the Royal Prerogative of Mercy was far wider than at the present day, as it was not only extended to some persons who in later ages would not be considered to have incurred any criminal respon-sibility, e.g., persons who had committed homicide by misadventure or in self-defence (Pollock and Maitland's Hist. Engl. Law, vol. ii., pp. 476 et seq.), but was even extended to jurors who had been attained for an oath that, though not false, was fatuous: ibid. p. 661. The power of pardoning offences is stated by Blackstone to be one of the great advantages of monarchy in general above every other form of government, and which cannot subsist in democracies. Its utility and necessity are defended by him on all those principles which do honour to human nature: see 4 Bl. Com. c. 31, p. 397. In early times, again, there were fewer offences that did not admit of being pardoned. In appeals (i.e., private accusations of felony) which were not the s...
High Steward of the Universities, Court of the Lord
High Steward of the Universities, Court of the Lord. By the charter of 7th June, 2 Hen. 4, confirmed by 13 Eliz. c. 29, conusance was granted to the University of Oxford of all indictments of treasons, insurrections, felonies, and mayhem, which should be found in any of the king's courts against a scholar or privileged person; they were to be tried before the Lord High Steward or his deputy, who is nominated by the Chancellor of the University, and approved of by the Lord High Chancellor of England. See CHANCELLORS OF THE UNIVERSITIES....
King's Bench
King's Bench. The Court of King's or Queen's bench (so called because the King used formerly to sit there in person (though the judges determined the causes), the style of the Court still being coram ipso rege, or coram ipsa regina) was a Court of record, and the Supreme Court of Common Law in the kingdom, consisting of a chief justice and four puisne justices, who were by their office the sovereign conservators of the peace and supreme coroners of the land.This court, which was the remnant of the aula regia, was not, nor could be, from the very nature and constitution of it, fixed to any certain place, but might follow the King's person wherever he went, for which reason all process issuing out of this Court in the King's name was returnable 'ubicunque fuerimus in Anglia.' For some centuries, and until the opening of the Royal Courts, the court usually sat at Westminster, being an ancient palace of the Crown, but might remove with the King as he thought proper to command.The jurisdict...
Alta proditio
Alta proditio, high treason; now simply called treason....
Capital punishment
Capital punishment, inflicted in pursuance of the (English) Capital Punishment Amendment Act, 1868 (31 & 32 Vict. c. 24) (before which executions were public), within the prison in which the offender is confined at the time of execution, in the compulsory presence of the sheriff, gaoler, chaplain, and surgeon, and such other officers of the prison as the sheriff requires, and also in the discretionary presence of any justice of the peace for the county, etc., and of such 'relatives of the prisoner, or other persons as it seems to the sheriff or visiting justices proper to admit within the prison.'-Chitty's Statutes, tit. 'Criminal Law,' where see the Rules of 1888 under the Act. See SENTENCE OF DEATH.The mode in the United Kingdom is hanging, but for high treason the Crown may alter it to beheading: see the (English) Treason Act, 1814 (54 Geo. 3, c. 146), as amended by s. 31 of the Forfeiture Act, 1870....
Treason
Treason [fr. trahir, Fr., to betray; proditio, Lat.], or leze-majesty, an offence against the duty of allegiance, and the highest known crime, for it aims at the very destruction of the commonwealth itself. Five species of treason are declared by the Treason Act, 1351, or 'Statute of Treasons' (25 Edw. 3, st. 5, c. 2), as follows:-(1) When a man doth compass or imagine the death of our lord the king (a queen regnant is within these words), of our lady his queen or of their eldest son and heir.(2) If a man do violate the king's companion (i.e., his wife), or the king's eldest daughter unmarried, or the wife of the king's eldest son and heir.(3) If a man do levy war against our lord the king in his realm. (After a battle has taken place, it is termed bellum percussum; before it, bellum levatum.)(4) If a man be adherent to the king's enemies in his realm, giving to them aid or comfort in the realm or elsewhere.(5) If a man slay the chancellor, treasurer, or the king's justices assigned to...
Indictment
Indictment [fr. indico, Lat., to show], a written accusation against one or more persons of a crime formerly preferred to and presented upon oath by a grand jury. Grand juries were partly abolished by the Administration of Justice (Miscellaneous Pro-visions) Act, 1933 (23 & 24 Geo. 5, c. 36). The bill of indictment is now preferred by any person before a court in which a person charged may lawfully be indicted, and the proper officer shall, if the requirements have been complied with, sign the bill and it shall thereupon become an indictment. But bills of indictment may be preferred before grand juries of the Counties of London and Middlesex by virtue of certain enactments set out in the 1st Schedule (high treason and certain other offences tribal in the King's Bench Division). Indictments were of a highly technical character until simplified by the Indictments Act, 1915, which directs that the particulars of the offence shall be 'set out in ordinary language.' See also Indictments Pro...
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