...that even gross fault is not equated to evil intent. [And this is the first extension of this original rule. Secondly, it is extended so that it may apply to statutes imposing capital punishment for homicide, which statutes receive an interpretation at common law. Therefore, they are to be understood to concern homicide committed with evil intent. Hence it is considered the rule in offenses...
2Cash Accounts, December 1773 (Washington Papers)
..., bond or free,” which included the provision that “any negroe, or other slave” convicted of the preparation or administration of medicines with intent to poison were to receive capital punishment “without benefit of clergy.” Those administering medicines without bad intent or consequence were allowed benefit of clergy; this allowed the culprit, to avoid the death sentence, and instead...
3To George Washington from John Hancock, 22 August 1776 (Washington Papers)
The enclosed resolutions of 21 Aug. concern Basil Bouderot’s trial for murdering Samuel Holden Parsons’s brother, capital punishment for persons “found lurking as Spies in, or about the Fortifications or Encampments of the Armies of the United States,” appropriation of $500,000 for the army at New York, procurement of cannon for Gates’s army...
4From George Washington to Colonel Lewis Nicola, 5 February 1780 (Washington Papers)
I have however since on account of the frequency of capital punishments and from General Woodford’s representation that this was the first offence the prisoner had been guilty of,). GW remained concerned about the frequency of executions and the resulting loss of the “good effects” of capital punishment (
5To George Washington from Samuel Huntington, 16 November 1780 (Washington Papers)
...equal establishment with the Officers of the line” or reduction. Another resolution “recommended to the legislatures of the respective States by whom it hath not already been done to inflict capital punishment on all such persons as shall directly or indirectly supply the enemy with provisions or military or naval stores; And that the most effectual measures be adopted by the respective...
6From Benjamin Franklin to Benjamin Vaughan, 14 March 1785 (Franklin Papers)
all capital Punishments...corresponding increase in hangings. Madan argued that English courts of assize still too often exercised their powers of reprieve after death sentences, which he believed undermined the deterrent effect of capital punishment. Madan was trained as a lawyer, but hearing a sermon by John Wesley set him on the path to becoming an Anglican chaplain. He eventually had to...
7To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 21 February 1789 (Adams Papers)
Rites of Execution: Capital Punishment and the Transformation of American Culture, 1776–1865
8To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 24 February 1790 (Adams Papers)
Rush’s political views, especially his public protest of capital punishment, attracted sharp criticism in the press. Writing as Philochoras, the Presbyterian minister Robert Annan (1742–1819), who presided over Philadelphia’s Old Scots Church, lambasted Rush throughout the fall of 1788. Another squib claimed that the...
9Abigail Adams to Mary Smith Cranch, 21 March 1790 (Adams Papers)
...disposition to mischief, malice, and revenge” may descend in a family: “A young woman was lately convicted at Paris of a trifling theft, barely within the law, which decreed a capital punishment. There were circumstances, too, which greatly alleviated her fault; some things in her behaviour that seemed innocent and modest: every spectator, as well as the judges, was affected at the scene,...
10Charles Adams to John Adams, 7 February 1796 (Adams Papers)
...Criminal Law of This State and for Erecting State Prisons.” Debate over the bill continued until 19 Feb., when it passed the senate. The assembly concurred, after various adjustments, on 25 March. The act allowed for capital punishment in the case of murder and treason but, after debate, excluded burglary, arson, counterfeiting, and a variety of other crimes (