Sometimes, judicial opinions contain extraordinary tidbits of history, for example there is an interesting bit of history concerning capital punishment (death penalty) at the time the English started colonizing the Americas.
In English common law, there were more than 200 capital crimes. This number was reduced to about twenty in the common law of the American Colonies by the mid-1600s.
The most usual of the American common law death penalty offenses were:
Source: Simpson v. Owens, 207 Ariz. 261, 85 P.3d 478 (Ariz.App. Div. 1, 2004)
In English common law, there were more than 200 capital crimes. This number was reduced to about twenty in the common law of the American Colonies by the mid-1600s.
The most usual of the American common law death penalty offenses were:
- idolatry,
- witchcraft,
- blasphemy,
- espionage/treason,
- murder,
- adultery,
- male homosexual acts,
- bestiality,
- “man stealing” (defined as “the taking away, deflouring, or contracting in marriage a maid under sixteen years of age” against the will of or unknown to her father or mother),
- rape,
- false witness with the purpose of taking a man's life,
- cursing or striking a parent,
- being a stubborn or rebellious son,
- “wilful burning”,
- speaking “impiously” against the “blessed Trinitie”,
- theft,
- “tak[ing] away any thing from any Indian coming to trade, or otherwise,”
- defrauding the colony,
- “rob[bing] any garden ... any vineyard ... [or] any eares of the corne growing,
- removing “any commoditie of this countrey ... out of the Colonie for his or their owne private uses”,
- offenses upon the third repetition such as slandering or disobeying the orders of the colony's governing officers or cursing “the name of God.”
Source: Simpson v. Owens, 207 Ariz. 261, 85 P.3d 478 (Ariz.App. Div. 1, 2004)