History of Law

1. History of Law • Where did the first written laws come from? • Name three ways that guilt was determined before jury trials.

2. Section A: Preliminaries Part II: The History of Judgment

3. Law • Origin • Developed in Mesopotamia to a point where it was actually published. • Code of Hammurabi • Based on earlier Sumerian Codes • Primitive code • Notable in its punishments, which fit the crime with a vengeance “eye for an eye.”

4. Law cont… • Changing the Law Code in England • Henry I (1100-1135) and Henry II (1154-1189) • Henry I based this code on the law of the Saxon King, Edward the Confessor (1042-1066). • Law books from this time period contained fixed schedules of money payments imposed as penalties for crimes. • Created common law, which is law common to all of England because it was administered by the royal courts. • Trial by combat and trial by ordeal were changed to alternative methods during his reign.

5. Trial By Combat • Trial by battle or Wager of battle • Way of settling legal disputes in the Middle Ages. • Noblemen used this for years. • People believed that God would interfere and help the righteous person win. • The procedure was for the accused to fight the accuser. • Sometimes Champions fought for noblemen. • Women and priests were represented by others in battle. • Introduced to England by William the Conqueror in 1066. • Trial by jury gradually took its place.

6. Trial by Ordeal • Purpose • A way of determining a person’s innocence or guilt during the Middle Ages. • A person was subjected to various forms of physical torture. • Burning - where the suspect had to carry a bar of red-hot iron in his hands while he walked nine marked paces. In the unlikely event of no burns appearing on his hand, he was judged innocent. Otherwise, he was promptly hanged. A variation was licking red-hot iron with the tongue or, sometimes, the suspect had to run barefoot over nine red-hot ploughshares.

7. Trial by Ordeal • Cutting • If the injuries healed within 3 days, the person was considered innocent. • Cold Water • A person was bound and thrown into a body of cold water, which had been blessed by the Catholic Church. If they sank, they were declared innocent, but if they floated, they were guilty and taken out and hanged - a sort of no-win situation! The Coroner was always present to record these happenings, again with an eye on the forfeiture of the felon's goods. In 1215, though, the practices were forbidden by an Edict of the Lateran Council.

8. Trial by Approver's Appeal • “Approver's Appeal", was the same as turning King's evidence, or Queen's evidence today. • AKA – outing your friends. • If a felon was able to implicate enough of his fellow criminals, so that they were convicted, he might escape a hanging and either be imprisoned for life or be allowed exile abroad. Very few of these appeals succeeded. Almost all these appeals were merely ruses to delay execution, to give more time to escape or bribe the gallowers.

9. Henry II • Law Code • Regularly sent justices out to the shires (counties). • There they were instructed to receive reports from local officials and try all cases pending. • The Sheriff brought a group of sworn men before the justices to report all crimes that had occurred. Their job was to indicate the probable criminal which was called a presentment. • This was the ancestor to the grand jury system.

10. Modern Trials • Purpose • Seek the truth through the mechanism of the trial. • Basic assumption: “The truth will win out” and “The jury is always right,” whether it is or not.