only the turn of the sheriff to keep a court-leet in each respective hundred this therefore is the great court-leet of the county, as the county-court is the court-baron; for out of this, for the ease of the sheriff, was it taken. Court-Leet. 10. The court-leet, or view of frankpledge, which is a court of record, held once in the year, and not oftener, within a particular hundred, lordship, or manor, before the steward of the leet: being the king's court, granted by charter to the lords of those hundreds or manors. Court of Coroner. II. The court of the coroner is also a court of record, to inquire when any one dies in prison, or comes to a violent or sudden death, by what manner he came to his end. And this he is only entitled to do super visum corporis. Court of Clerk of the Market. 12. The court of the clerk of the market is incident to every fair and market in the kingdom, to punish misdemeanours therein, as a court of pie poudre is to determine all disputes relating to private or civil property. Chapter XX. OF SUMMARY CONVICTIONS. Summary Proceedings. 280-289. By a summary proceeding I mean principally such as is directed by several acts of parliament (for the common law is a stranger to it, unless in the case of contempts) for the conviction of offenders and the infliction of certain penalties created by those acts of parliament. In these there is no intervention of a jury, but the party accused is acquitted or condemned by the suffrage of such person only as the statute has appointed for his judge. I. Of this summary nature are all trials of offences and frauds contrary to the laws of the excise and other branches of the revenue, which are to be inquired into and determined by the commissioners of the respective departments, or by justices of the peace in the country. II. Another branch of summary proceedings is that before justices of the peace, in order to inflict divers petty pecuniary mulcts, and corporal penalties, denounced by act of parliament for many disorderly offences, such as common swearing, drunkenness, vagrancy, idleness, and a vast variety of others, for which I must refer the student to the justice-books formerly cited, and which used to be formerly punished by a verdict of a jury in the courtleet. The process of these summary convictions, it must be owned, is extremely speedy. Though the courts of common law have thrown in one check upon them by making it necessary to summon the party accused before he is condemned. After this summons the magistrate, in summary proceedings, may go on to examine one or more witnesses, as the statute may require, upon oath, and then make his conviction of the offender in writing: upon which he usually issues his warrant either to apprehend the offender, in case corporal punishment is to be inflicted on him; or else to levy the penalty incurred by distress and sale of his goods. III. To this head of summary proceedings may also be properly referred the method, immemorially used by the superior courts of justice, of punishing contempts by attachment, and the subsequent proceedings thereon. The contempts that are thus punished are either direct, which openly insult or resist the powers of the courts or the persons of the judges who preside there, or else are consequential, which (without such gross insolence or direct opposition) plainly tend to create a universal disregard of their authority. The principal instances of either sort that have been usually punishable by attachment are chiefly of the following kinds: 1. Those committed by inferior judges and magistrates, by acting unjustly, oppressively, or irregularly in administering those portions of justice which are entrusted to their distribution, or by disobeying the king's writs issuing out of the superior courts by proceeding in a cause after it is put a stop to or removed by writ of prohibition, certiorari, error, supersedeas, and the like; for, as the king's superior courts (and especially the court of king's bench) have a general superintendence over all inferior jurisdictions, any corrupt or iniquitous practices of subordinate judges are contempts of that superintending authority whose duty it is to keep them within the bounds of justice. 2. Those committed by sheriffs, bailiffs, gaolers, and other officers of the court, by abusing the process of the law or deceiving the parties; by any acts of oppression, extortion, collusive behaviour, or culpable neglect of duty. 3. Those committed by attorneys and solicitors, who are also officers of the respective courts, by gross instances of fraud and corruption, injustice to their clients, or other dishonest practice; for the malpractice of the officers reflects some dishonour on their employers, and if frequent or unpunished, creates among the people a disgust against the courts themselves. 4. Those committed by jurymen in collateral matters relating to the discharge of their office, such as making default when summoned, refusing to be sworn or to give any verdict, eating or drinking without the leave of the court, and especially at the cost of either party, and other misbehaviour or irregularities of a similar kind; but not in mere exercise of their judicial capacities, as by giving a false or erroneous verdict. 5. Those committed by witnesses, by making default when summoned, refusing to be sworn or examined, or prevaricating in their evidence when sworn. 6. Those committed by parties to any suit or proceeding before the court, as by disobedience to any rule or order made in the progress of a cause, by non-payment of costs awarded by the court upon a motion, or by non-observance of awards duly made by arbitrators or umpires after having entered into a rule for submitting to such determination. Indeed, the attachment for most of this species of contempts, and especially for non-payment of costs and non-performance of awards, is to be looked upon rather as a civil execution for the benefit of the injured party, though carried on in the shape of a criminal process for a contempt of the authority of the court. And therefore it has been held that such contempts, and the process thereon, being properly the civil remedy of individuals for a private injury, are not released or affected by a general act of pardon. 7. Those committed by any other persons under the degree of a peer, and even by peers themselves, when enormous and accompanied with violence, such as forcible rescous and the like, or when they import disobedience to the king's great prerogative writs of prohibition, habeas corpus, and the rest. Some of these contempts may arise in the face of the court, as by rude and contumelious behaviour; by obstinacy, perverseness, or prevarication; by breach of the peace, or any wilful disturbance whatever; others in the absence of the party, as by disobeying or treating with disrespect the king's writ, or the rules or process of the court, by perverting such writ or process to the purposes of private malice, extortion, or injustice; by speaking or writing contemptuously of the court or judges, acting in their judicial capacity; by printing false accounts (or even true ones without proper permission) of causes then depending in judgment; and by anything, in short, that demonstrates a gross want of that regard and respect which once courts of justice are deprived of, their authority (so necessary for the good order of the kingdom) is entirely lost among the people. If the contempt be committed in the face of the court, the offender may be instantly apprehended and imprisoned, at the discretion of the judges, without any further proof or examination. But in matters that arise at a distance, and of which the court cannot have so perfect a knowledge, unless by the confession of the party or the testimony of others, if the judges upon affidavit see sufficient ground to suspect that a contempt has been committed, they either make a rule on the suspected party to show cause why an attachment should not issue against him, or, in very flagrant instances of contempt, the attachment issues in the first instance; as it also does if no sufficient cause be shown to discharge; and thereupon the court confirms and makes absolute the original rule. This process of attachment is merely intended to bring the party into court; and, when there, he must either stand committed, or put in bail, in order to answer upon oath to such interrogatories as shall be administered to him for the better information of the court with respect to the circumstances of the contempt. These interrogatories are in the nature of a charge or accusation, and must by the course of the court be exhibited within the first four day: and if any of the interrogatories are improper, the defendant may refuse to answer it, and move the court to have it struck out. If the party can clear himself upon oath he is discharged, but, if perjured, may be prosecuted for the perjury. If he confesses the contempt, the court will proceed to correct him by fine or imprisonment, or both, and sometimes by a corporal or infamous punishment. If the contempt be of such nature that, when the fact is once acknowledged, the court can receive no further information by interrogatories than it is already possessed of (as in the case of a rescous), the defendant may be admitted to make such simple acknowledgment, and receive his judgment without answering to any interrogatories; but if he wilfully and obstinately refuses to answer, or answers in an evasive manner, he is then clearly guilty of a high and repeated contempt, to be punished at the discretion of the court. Order of Proceedings. Chapter XXI. OF ARRESTS. We are now to consider the regular and ordinary method of proceeding in the courts of criminal jurisdiction; which may be distributed under twelve general heads, following each other in progressive order, viz., 1. Arrest; 2. Commitment, and bail; 3. Prosecution; 4. Process; 5. Arraignment, and its incidents; 6. Plea, and issue; 7. Trial, and conviction; 8. Clergy; 9. Judgment, and its consequences; 10. Reversal of judgment; 11. Reprieve, or pardon; 12. Execution; all of which will be discussed in the subsequent part of this book. An arrest is the apprehending or restraining of one's person, in order to be forthcoming to answer an alleged or suspected crime. To this arrest all persons whatsoever are, without distinction, equally liable in all criminal cases; but no man is to be ar rested unless charged with such a crime as will at least justify holding him to bail when taken. And in general, an arrest may be made in four ways: 1. By warrant; 2. By an officer without warrant; 3. By a private person also without warrant; 4. By a hue and cry. 1. A warrant may be granted in extraordinary cases by the privy council, or secretaries of state; but ordinarily by justices of the peace. This they may do in any cases where they have a jurisdiction over the offence, in order to compel the person accused to appear before them. And this extends undoubtedly to all treasons, felonies, and breaches of the peace; and also to all such offences as they have power to punish by statute. 1. That a justice of the peace hath power to issue a warrant to apprehend a person accused of felony, though not yet indicted; and 2. That he may also issue a warrant to apprehend a person suspected of felony, though the original suspicion be not in himself, but in the party that prays his warrant; because he is a competent judge of the probability offered to him of such suspicion. But in both cases it is fitting to examine upon oath the party requiring a warrant, as well to ascertain that there is a felony or other crime actually committed, without which no warrant should be granted; as also to prove the cause and probability of suspecting the party against whom the warrant is prayed. This warrant ought to be under the hand and seal of the justice, should set forth the time and place of making, and the cause for which it is made, and should be directed to the constable or other peace-officer (or, it may be, to any private person by name), requiring him to bring the party, either generally before any justice of the peace for the county, or only before the justice who granted it; the warrant in the latter case being called a special warrant. A general warrant to apprehend all persons suspected, without naming or particularly describing any person in special, is illegal and void for its uncertainty; for it is the duty of the magistrate, and ought not to be left to the officer to judge of the ground of suspicion. And a warrant to apprehend all persons guilty of a crime therein specified is no legal warrant; for the point upon which its authority rests is a fact to be decided upon a subsequent trial, namely, whether the person apprehended thereupon be really guilty or not. It is therefore, in fact, no warrant at all, for it will not justify the officer who acts under it; whereas a warrant properly penned (even though the magistrate who issues it should exceed his jurisdiction), will, by statute 24 Geo. II. c. 44, at all events indemnify the officer who executes the same ministerially. And when a warrant is received by the officer he is bound to execute it so far as the jurisdiction of the magistrate and himself extends. A warrant from the chief or other justice |