LAWS 3305 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Lower Canada, Moral Panic
30 Sep 2020
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Treasons and felonies - capital punishments, sometimes tortured before death for giggles. Imbalance theory, prosecution has money from rewards system for lawyer thieftaker etc, nothing for defence, counsel banned etc. Punishments same but rationalized ( death by hanging) and elaborated for misdemeanours (ie addition of houses of correction) Crimes of a financial nature only punished by fines now, unless betrayal of trust. Corporal punishment trimmed down to only whipping and being put in tpillary. Cromwell introduced house of correction, first to be an actual sentence, hard. Jails (then spelled gaels) used for those awaiting trial labour in a hoc. Hoc gradually displaced corporal punishment, vast majority in hoc or fined. Fellonies still not seen as something that can be punished by hoc. New systems of mitigation developed for felony convictions to lend some flexibility to automatic death sentence. Ie partial verdicts, conditional pardon (mitigating circumstances to warrant carry out automatic sentence, considered for royal mercy)
