7. 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; which he is only entitled to do super visum corporis. This court is only mentioned here by way of regularity, as among the criminal courts of the nation.

II. The special courts of criminal jurisdiction are now few in number; for within that category are not included here any ecclesiastical courts; which punish spiritual sins, rather than temporal crimes, by penance, contrition, and excommunication, pro salute anima; or, which is looked upon as equivalent to all the rest, by a sum of money to the officers of the courts by way of commutation of penance. The special courts are

1. The Central Criminal Court, which has jurisdiction to hear and determine all treasons, murders, felonies, and misdemeanors, committed in London and Middlesex, and certain parts of the surrounding counties, and also all offences committed on the high seas, and which formerly, were, for that reason, within the jurisdiction of the Admiralty.

2. The chancellors' courts of the two universities may try all criminal offences or misdemeanors under the degree of treason, felony, or mayhem; the trial of these crimes being reserved for another court, namely, the court of the lord high steward of the university.

When, therefore, an indictment is found at the assizes, or elsewhere, against any scholar of either university, or other privileged person, the vice-chancellor may claim the cognizance of it; and then it comes to be tried in the high steward's court. But the indictment must first be found by a grand jury, and then the cognizance claimed; for the high steward cannot proceed originally ad inquirendum, but only ad audiendum et determinandum. When the cognizance is allowed, if the offence be inter minora crimina, or a misdemeanor only, it is tried in the chancellor's court by the ordinary judge. But if it be for treason, felony, or mayhem, it is then, and then only, to be determined before the high steward, under a special commission of the crown to try the same. If execution be necessary to be

awarded, in consequence of finding the party guilty, the sheriff executes the university process; to which he is annually bound by an oath.

CHAPTER XXI.

OF SUMMARY CONVICTIONS.

THE proceedings in courts of criminal jurisdiction are either summary or regular. The former may be briefly described; the latter will require a more particular examination.

By a summary proceeding is meant such as is directed by several acts of parliament, for the conviction of offenders, and the inflicting of certain penalties created by those acts. There is no intervention of a jury, but the 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; officers, who are all of them appointed and removable at the discretion of the crown.

II. Another branch of summary proceedings is that before justices of the peace, in order to inflict divers petty pecuniary mulets, and corporal penalties, denounced by act of parliament for many disorderly offences; such as petty trespasses, assaults, swearing, drunkenness, vagrancy, and others.

In all these cases, when an information is laid before a justice that any person has committed an offence for which he is liable to be punished, or a complaint is made, upon which the justice has authority to make any order, a summons is to be issued; which must be served on the person to whom it is directed; the constable or other person by whom such service is effected attending at the return of the summons, to prove the service thereof, if necessary. If the person summoned does not appear, a warrant may be issued for his apprehension. In the case of an information being laid, and substantiated by proper evidence

a warrant may be issued in the first instance; and upon this warrant, which may be executed in any other district than that in which it is issued, after being backed or indorsed by a justice of that district, the person charged may be taken, and brought before the justices; who have authority to issue summonses, and to compel the attendance, at the hearing, of witnesses for the prosecutor, complainant, or defendant, as the case may be.

The information or complaint must then be heard and adjudicated upon by the justices, according to the ordinary course of legal procedure, the complainant proving his case, the defendant making his answer, and the complainant examining witnesses in reply, if need be; the room in which all this is transacted being deemed an open court, to which the public are, therefore, entitled to have free access.

This is, in general, the method of summary proceedings before justices; but, in many cases, they must have recourse to the particular statutes which create the offence or inflict the punishment, and which usually chalk out the method by which offenders are to be convicted. Otherwise the offences fall under the general rule, and can only be prosecuted by indictment or information at the common law.

Thus, as regards juvenile offenders, that is, persons whose age does not exceed sixteen years, the justices may convict summarily in any case where an offence is by law deemed to be simple larceny; and pass a sentence not exceeding three months or impose a fine not exceeding three pounds. They have power, if they think it not expedient to inflict any punishment, to dismiss the accused, even if the offence be proved. And he, on the other hand, may object to the case being summarily disposed of, and insist on being sent for trial by a jury.

In certain other cases, the justices may, with the assent of the accused, hear and determine the charge in a summary way; and pass a sentence of three months' imprisonment, with hard abour. And in another class of cases may punish, where the accused confesses the charge, by an imprisonment not exceeding six months. But as hardened offenders would, in either case, inevitably embrace such an opportunity of escaping with a comparatively light punishment, it is provided, that if it appear that the accused has been previously convicted of felony, the

justices shall have no jurisdiction so to dispose of the case; but it must be sent for trial.

III. To this head may be referred the method, immemorially used, 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 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: as by proceeding in a cause after it is put a stop to or removed by prohibition, certiorari, or the like. 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 act of oppression, or culpable neglect of duty. 3. Those committed by solicitors who are officers of the courts: by fraud and corruption, injustice to their clients, or other dishonest practice. 4. Those committed by jurymen in the discharge of their office: as making default, when summoned; refusing to be sworn; and other misbehaviours of a similar kind; but not in the 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. 6. Those committed by the parties to a suit: as by disobedience to an order; or by non-observance of an award. 7. Those committed by other persons: as by rude and contumelious behaviour in court; by disobeying the queen's writ, or the orders or process of the court; by speaking or writing contemptuously of the court, or of the judges acting in their judicial capacity; or by printing false accounts, or even true ones, in defiance of the prohibition of the court, of causes then depending in judgment.

The process of attachment, for these and the like contempts, must necessarily be as ancient as the laws themselves. For laws, without a competent authority to secure their administration from disobedience and contempt, would be vain and

nugatory. A power therefore to suppress such contempts, by an immediate attachment of the offender, results from the first principles of judicial establishments, and must be an inseparable attendant upon every tribunal.

CHAPTER XXII.

OF ARRESTS.

THE regular method of proceeding in the courts of criminal jurisdiction may be distributed under ten general heads; 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. Judgment, and its consequences; 9. Reversal of judgment, reprieve, or pardon; 10. Execution.

An arrest is the apprehending or restraining of the person of an alleged delinquent, in order that he may be forthcoming to answer an alleged or suspected crime; and it may be made: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 case where they have a jurisdiction over the offence, in order to compel the person accused to appear before them; for it would be absurd to give them power to examine an offender, unless they had also a power to compel him to attend and submit to such examination. And this extends to all treasons, felonies, and breaches of the peace; and also to all such offences as they have power to punish by statute.

Upon an information, therefore, or a complaint, in writing and upon oath, a justice may issue his warrant to apprehend the person charged or suspected, and cause him to be brought before him or any other justice or justices, to answer the charge and be dealt with according to law. The justice may, in his discretion, and on a mere charge or complaint, without a written information or oath, issue a summons in the first instance; and