>>> Item number 228, dated 93/10/26 13:36:40 -- ALL
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1993 13:36:40 CDT Reply-To: Legal History discussion list <H-LAW@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Legal History discussion list <H-LAW@UICVM.BITNET> From: cfcrw@ecnuxa.bitnet Subject: Re: the value of an axe.
'Deodand' isn't it - the right of the Crown to the value of the property from which the victim of the accident, suicide, homicide, or whatever died ( though I'm unclear in this case whether your Sam died)? Of course, it could just as easily have been a rather more profitable horse or boat in the case of an accidental death. In any event, the sum would have been assessed by the coroner's inquest and the profit have been taken by the King's Almoner - in theory. Perhaps there is here an assumption that the assault may lead to a death within 12 months? Where's your case from?
Simon Stevenson
The case is from Warren County, Mississippi, Circuit Court. Sam was accused of murdering his master with an axe. Unnecessary detail follows: He slipped in at night and took a swing but struck a glancing blow, knocking the victim's nose off. The now noseless victim sat up in bed and announced, "Gentlemen, Sam's in the house." He lived in a one-room shanty--the "gentlemen" were probably other slaves. The second blow proved fatal.
>>> Item number 231, dated 93/10/26 21:10:33 -- ALL
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 1993 21:10:33 CDT Reply-To: Legal History discussion list <H-LAW@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Legal History discussion list <H-LAW@UICVM.BITNET> From: cfcrw@ecnuxa.bitnet Subject: Re: the value of an axe
Bob Pasker asks:
> can anyone tell me why indictments for assault bothered to list the value
> of weapon used? this is quite pervasive in the RI supreme court cases I
> have been reading and i understand that it was so in other parts of the
> country as well.
>
> e.g.:
> > did make an assault and that
> >he the said Sam with a certain Axe of the value of one Dollar
This is just a guess, but it sounds as if the axe may have been--at one time--subject to forfeiture as a deodand. Even if RI law did not provide for the forfeiture of deodands to the state--and I don't know that it didn't--the old form of the indictment may have persisted.
Peter D. Junger
Case Western Reserve University Law School, Cleveland, OH Internet: JUNGER@SAMSARA.LAW.CWRU.Edu -- Bitnet: JUNGER@CWRU
>>> Item number 236, dated 93/10/27 19:26:35 -- ALL
Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1993 19:26:35 CDT Reply-To: Legal History discussion list <H-LAW@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Legal History discussion list <H-LAW@UICVM.BITNET> From: cfcrw@ecnuxa.bitnet Subject: Re: the value of an axe
> Bob Pasker asks:
>
> > can anyone tell me why indictments for assault bothered to list the value
> > of weapon used? this is quite pervasive in the RI supreme court cases I
> > have been reading and i understand that it was so in other parts of the
> > country as well.
> >
> > e.g.:
> > > did make an assault and that
> > >he the said Sam with a certain Axe of the value of one Dollar
>
> This is just a guess, but it sounds as if the axe may have been--at one
> time--subject to forfeiture as a deodand. Even if RI law did not
> provide for the forfeiture of deodands to the state--and I don't know
> that it didn't--the old form of the indictment may have persisted.
>
>
> Peter D. Junger
>
> Case Western Reserve University Law School, Cleveland, OH
> Internet: JUNGER@SAMSARA.LAW.CWRU.Edu -- Bitnet: JUNGER@CWRU
> You willfind a discussion of deodands in the first chapter of Holmes's The Common Law.
>>> Item number 282, dated 93/11/10 07:51:22 -- ALL
Date: Wed, 10 Nov 1993 07:51:22 CST Reply-To: Legal History discussion list <H-LAW@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Legal History discussion list <H-LAW@UICVM.BITNET> From: cfcrw@ecnuxa.bitnet Subject: Re: Value of weapons
thanks to all for the information about value of weapons being linked to deodands. i actually came upon a discussion of this today in keith burgess-jackson, "the legal status of suicide in early america: a comparison with the english experience," _wayne law review_ 29 (1982), 57. in section 5, which discusses the justification for punishment of suicide, burgess-jackson writes:
"english legal scholars drew heavily upon medieval scholasticism for their rules and practices. in scholastic thought, the overriding goal of the legal system was to insure order and continuity in the cosmos, which they conceived to be a seamless web. if 'rent' appeared in that web, by whatever means, it had to be repaired. this retributivist attitude was reflected in several medieval legal doctrines, two of which--deodand and _lex talionis_--shed light on the medival treatment of suicide."
this meant, then, that if an animal or inanimate object had been involved
in a crime, it too had to be punished. in the case of suicide, the corpse
was punished in various ways, such as by mutilation or denying christian
burial.
--
>>> Item number 302, dated 93/11/17 12:32:55 -- ALL
Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1993 12:32:55 CST Reply-To: Legal History discussion list <H-LAW@UICVM.BITNET> Sender: Legal History discussion list <H-LAW@UICVM.BITNET> From: cfcrw@ecnuxa.bitnet Subject: Re: Value of weapons
This message was originally submitted by LAWDL@VAXE.ANGLIA-POLYTECHNIC.AC.UK.
I don't know how relevant this is, but Chitty on the Prerogative; 153, 3rd: Deodand; "Whatever personal chattel is the immediate occasion of the death of any reasonable creature, which is forfeighted to the King, to be applied to pious uses, and distributed in aims by his high almoner".
See, generally; YB 30&31 Edw 1 and R v Eastern Counties Railway, 1 Bl.Com at 300. Abolished in the UK by the Deodands Act 1846.
David Lane
Dept of Law
Anglia University, UK.