CHAPTER XXI.

OF REPRIEVE AND PARDON.

I. [A reprieve, from reprendre, to take back, is the withdrawing of a sentence for an interval of time; whereby the execution of a criminal is suspended (a).

This may be, in the first place, ex mandato regis, that is, the mere pleasure of the Crown, expressed to the court by which execution is to be awarded (b).

Again, there may be a reprieve ex arbitrio judicis; either before or after judgment; as where the judge is not satisfied with the verdict, or the evidence is suspicious or the indictment is insufficient, or sometimes if any favourable circumstances appear in the criminal's character,-in order to give room to apply to the Crown for either an absolute or conditional pardon (c).

Reprieves may also be ex necessitate legis; as, where a woman is capitally convicted, and pleads her pregnancy; though this is no cause to stay the judgment; yet it is to respite the execution till she be delivered. This is a mercy dictated by the law of nature, in favorem prolis; and therefore no part of the bloody proceedings, in the reign of queen Mary, hath been more justly detested than the

(a) Vide sup. p. 343. It should be observed, in reference to such portions of this and the following chapter as are substantially taken from Blackstone, that he is speaking chiefly of a judgment of death, -in his time, by reason of the severity of the law as it then

existed, of far more frequent occurrence than at the present day. (Vide sup. p. 20 in notis.)

(b) 1 Hale, P. C. 368; 2 Hale, P. C. 412; Hawk. P. C. b. 2, c. 51, 8. 8.

(c) See 2 Hale, P. C. 412.

[cruelty that was exercised in the island of Guernsey, of burning a woman big with child; and when, through the violence of the flames, the infant sprang forth at the stake, and was preserved by the bystanders, after some deliberation of the priests who assisted at the sacrifice, they cast it again into the fire as a young heretic (d). A barbarity which they never learned from the laws of antient Rome; which direct, with the same humanity as our own, "quod prægnantis mulieris damnatæ pœna differatur, quoad pariat” (e): which doctrine has also prevailed in England, as early as the first memorials of our law will reach (ƒ). In case this plea be made in stay of execution, the judge must direct a jury of twelve matrons or discreet women to inquire the fact (g); and if they bring in their verdict quick with child (for, barely with child, unless it be alive in the womb, is not sufficient), execution shall be stayed generally till the next session; and so from session to session, till either she is delivered or proves by the course of nature not to have been with child at all. But if she once hath had the benefit of this reprieve, and been delivered, and afterwards becomes pregnant again, she shall not be entitled to the benefit of a further respite for that cause (h). For she may now be executed before the child is quick in the womb: and shall not, by her own incontinence, evade the sentence of justice.

Another cause of regular reprieve is, if the offender become non compos, between the judgment and the award of execution (i); for by the common law, on which, as formerly shown, some new provisions have now been en

(d) Fox, Acts and Mon.

(e) Ff. 48, 19, 3.

(f) Flet. 1. 1, c. 38.

(9) This practice was followed in the year 1879, in a case of murder, in which, after sentence pronounced, an allegation of pregnancy was made by the prisoner. The jury of women then empannelled

from among those in court, were assisted in their inquiry by a surgeon; and the fact of pregnancy being found by them not to exist, the execution took place in due

course.

(h) 1 Hale, P. C. 369.
(i) Ib. 370.

[grafted by the legislature, though a man be sane when he commits a capital crime, yet if he becomes non compos after, he shall not be indicted; if after indictment, he shall not be convicted; if after conviction, he shall not receive judgment; if after judgment, he shall not be ordered for execution; if after such order, it shall not be carried out: for "furiosus solo furore punitur ;" and the law knows not but he might have offered some reason, if in his senses, to have stayed these respective proceedings (k). It is, therefore, the rule to demand of the prisoner, after he has been found guilty, what he hath to allege, why execution should not be awarded against him; and if he then appears to be insane, the judge in his discretion may and ought to reprieve him.]

II. If neither pregnancy, insanity, non-identity, nor other special reason-which collateral question if raised by way of plea in bar of execution should, as the general rule, be determined forthwith by a jury for that purpose then empannelled (7), and of which no peremptory challenges are allowed the prisoner (m)—will avail to stay the execution consequent on the judgment, the last and surest resort is an Act of grace, or else the sovereign's most gracious pardon; the granting of which is the most amiable prerogative of the Crown. [Law, says an able writer, cannot be framed on principles of compassion to guilt: yet justice, by the constitution of England, is bound to be administered in mercy: this is promised by the sovereign in his coronation oath; and it is that act of his government which is the most personal, and most entirely his own (»).

() Vide sup. p. 25.

(7) See R. v. Corbet, 1 Sid. 72; Fost. 42.

(m) See R. v. Okey, 1 Lev. 61; Fost. 42, 46; Staundf. P. C. 163; Co. Litt. 157; Hal. Sum. 259.

(n) Law of Forfeit. 99. In our own times, the exercise of this royal

prerogative has in some measure devolved on the responsible advisers of the crown; and in practice is a branch of the office of the secretary of state for the home department, on whose recommendation her Majesty usually acts in particular cases brought before her.

[The king himself condemns no man; that rugged task he leaves to his courts of justice; the great operation of his sceptre is mercy. His power of pardoning was said, by our Saxon ancestors, to be derived a lege sua dignitatis (p); and it is declared in parliament, by statute 27 Hen. VIII. c. 24, that no other person hath power to pardon or remit any treason or felonies whatsoever; but that the king hath the whole and sole power thereof, united and knit to the imperial crown of this realm (q).

It is indeed one of the great advantages of monarchy, in general, above any other form of government, that there is a magistrate who has it in his power to extend mercy, wherever he thinks it is deserved holding a court of equity in his own breast, to soften the rigour of the general law, in such criminal cases as merit an exemption from punishment. Pardons, (according to some theorists,) should be excluded in a perfect legislation, where punishments are mild but certain: for the clemency of the prince seems a tacit disapprobation of the laws (). But the exclusion of pardons would, of necessity, introduce a very dangerous power in the judge or jury, namely, that of construing the criminal law by the spirit instead of the letter (s); or else it must be holden, what no man will seriously avow, that the situation and circumstances of the offender, though they alter not the essence of the crime, ought to make no distinction in the punishment. In democracies, however, this power of pardon can never subsist; for there, nothing higher is acknowledged than the magistrate who administers the laws; and it would be impolitic for the power of judging and of pardoning, to centre in one and the same person. This, as the president Montesquieu observes, would oblige him very often to contradict him

(P) Wilk. Leg. Ang.-Sax. LL. Edw. Conf. c. 18.

(4) It is laid down that this power belongs only to a king de facto, and not to a king de jure

during the time of usurpation. (Bro. Abr. t. Charter de Pardon, 22.)

(r) Beccar. c. 20.
(s) Ib. c. 4.

[self, to make and to unmake his decisions: it would tend to confound all ideas of right among the mass of the people; as they would find it difficult to tell whether a prisoner were discharged by his innocence, or obtained a pardon through favour (t). But in monarchies, the sovereign acts in a superior sphere; and though he regulates the whole government as the first mover, yet he does not appear in any of the disagreeable or invidious parts. of it. Whenever the nation see him personally engaged, it is only in works of legislature, magnificence, or compassion. To him, therefore, the people look up as the fountain of nothing but bounty and grace; and these repeated acts of goodness, coming immediately from his own hand, endear him to his subjects; and contribute more than anything to root in their hearts that filial affection and personal loyalty, which are the sure establishment of a prince.

Under this head of pardons we may, in the first place, observe that the sovereign may pardon all offences merely against the Crown or the public, excepting-1, That, to preserve the liberty of the subject, the committing any man to prison out of the realm, was by the Habeas Corpus Act, 31 Car. II. c. 2, made a præmunire, unpardonable even by the king. Nor-2. Can the king pardon, where private justice is principally concerned in the prosecution of offenders; "non potest rex gratiam facere cum injuriâ et damno aliorum" (u). For example, he cannot pardon a common nuisance, while it remains unredressed, or so as to prevent an abatement of it: though afterwards he may remit the fine: and this, because though the prosecution is vested in the king to avoid multiplicity of suits, yet during its continuance, this offence savours more of the nature of a private injury to each individual in the neighbourhood, than of a public wrong (a).] It may be (t) Sp. L. b. 6, c. 5. (2) Hawk. P. C. b. 2, c. 37, s. 33.

(u) 3 Inst. 236.