date

26 Jan y 1808 Codification - Jury
26 Jan y 1808

Codification - Jury Trial

Jury Trial

Cutting[?]

Here then for the purpose of causing a man to be put to death, fr this purpose all men without distinction, the most ignorant included /not excluded are supposed not only to be apprized[?] of the existence of the law by which the being that dealt with is made the consequence of the act of cutting[?] accompanied with the bad intentions therein described - apprized of its existence , and to the effect in question approved of the meaning of the several words of which it is composed /by which it stands expressed/, the words cut and cutting among the rest. But when[?] for the purpose of sitting in judgment on an accusation charging a man with having committed the[?] forbidden act of this description, a man of a class superior /superior to the table[?] of the [...?]/ in point /respect/ of condition of life ad the portion of knowledge naturally attached to it, and on account of such [...?] superiority selected, is placed in the situation of a Judge, then it is that because not being he is not a professionally bred lawyer /Judge/, he is regarded by those who are professionally bred lawyers, as a man incapable of understanding ad not it to be treated [...?] what it is that cutting is /the word cut and cutting mean/. That the individual accused has been guilty of offending against the law by which a [...?] of death the act of cutting is [...?] accompanied with the evil [...?] in question made a capital offence is what they are indeed permitted to decide: but the act /word/ of cutting being one of the number of the words employed in the law, and the question concerning the import of it being accordingly a question of law and professionally bred lawyers the only persons capable /qualified/ of understanding /o decide in/ questions of law, and the Jury men[?] [...?] of them professionally bred lawyers shame it is that their having pronounced the accused guilty of the act of cutting accompanied with he evil instances in question is not a sufficient warrant for the declaring him guilty.
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  • Title: [26 Jan y 1808 Codification-Jury Trial]
    Description: 26 Jan y 1808

    Codification-Jury Trial

    Jury Trial

    Cutting

    continued

    guilty of so doing, and for dealing with him accordingly, forasmuch as for the reason aforesaid it is not be presumed /believed/ of the though upon their oaths they say do, hat they understand what cutting is. To understand what cutting is, it is necessary for a man to be a professionally bred Judge. Accordingly on this occasion what is meant by the word to cut is a question fit to be referred, and referred accordingly to the 10 great Judges.

    Though they were all taylors, as cabinet makers or cutters employed in cutting from childhood upwards, still they would not know any of them what cutting is the instant they were put /are shut/ into the Jury-box that knowledge has passed from /out of them/: for him to do[?] presume[?] whatever knowledge has experience may have helped him to [...?] the import of the word cutting a man's seat must be on the Bench.
  • Title: [24 Jan y 1808 Jury trial Codification]
    Description: 24 Jan y 1808

    Jury trial Codification

    Law & Fact

    Cutting

    Where /So far/ the pint in which the question [...?] as a point of real law, the question of law is plain[?] and distinct, and the form of pleading adapted to the case is equally so. The assemblage of words in question being a determinate, the question of law is what is the impact [...?] to be given to those words: the question of fact or whether the act /matter of fact //event/ expressed by the words employed in the evidence, be one event /a fact/ that comes under the description given by those words.

    The question that came[?] in t'other day in the Statute commonly called Lord Ellenborough's Act, may in respect of its simplicity, though the case be a [...?] only serve on this occasion for an example. By the Act it is made capital for one man harbouring /in pursuit of/ certain intentions therein declared to cut another. With an instrument not designed to cut /formed for the purpose of cutting/ the defendant had produced on the body of the prosecutor an effect of that sort which is produced by applying [...?] instrument formed for the purpose of cutting to that its destined use. Turning upon certain words, forming part of the law, a determinate and really existing portion of the true[?] matter of the law this question was out of dispute a question of law, as such it was referred to the Judges. But for any such reference whether there could be any use or reason, is another question and a very different one whether there could be any use or reason for sending it out of the hands of a Jury, is another question and a very different one.

    /The act done by the defendant was it or was it not an act an act of cutting of the number of those acts which ought to be condemned as designated by the word cutting by the verb to cut?
  • Title: [26 Jan y 1808 Codification Jury Trial]
    Description: 26 Jan y 1808

    Codification Jury Trial

    Jury Trial

    Cutting

    For further illustration, and to take /find/ a case belonging to statute law, from civil judicature pass on to criminal and instead of sale and selling , let the words be cut and cutting. A law is made /created/, requiring of the Judge to put to death whosoever /every man that/ with certain evil intentions therein described, shall have been found guilty of cutting one[?] body of another: a law proposed and enacted doubtless in this view, that a man /men/ by whom but for this mischief of that description might have been perpetrated, may by the fear of the law be deterred from it. The men in whom this wicked habit[?] had been observed, which wicked habit it were the object /design/ of the law to put an end to, were habitual thieves /depredators/, a class composed of the most illiterate and ignorant among the people. What always has been and so long as the rule[?] of action in respect of cognisibility continues in its present state, always will be not only possible but altogether probable in that without having known of its existence, men may in any number come to be put to death for having offended against the law. What neither has been nor ever will be possible is, that by this or by any her law "men's conduct should be influenced any further than on the existence of a law to that effect as well as the import of that law has been brought within his knowledge.

    /it had in any misconduct[?] any/