Kate Borows-Lai, 2016

Legal System/Court practices Notecard

Source:

Nardo, Don. Daily life in Colonial America . Detroit, Lucent Books.

Pages:

54-55

Quote:

“Most judges, like the legal system itself, were guided less by the legal concepts of facts and fairness and more by religious considerations. The primary goal for a judge was to enforce God’s will. This usually entailed having the accused person confess his or her guilt and to repent, hopefully in public court. A trial was not primarily designed to prove someone’s guilt or innocence, therefore, but rather to provide a venue for satisfying God through the process of confession. Indeed, most trials were heavily weighted against the accused person, or defendant. There was a district attorney-like official appointed by the colonial governor; his job was to vigorously prosecute the defendant and get him to confess. In contrast, defense attorneys were rarely seen in court. This was partly because few such lawyers existed in the colonies, but also because they were expensive, so only upper-class people could afford to hire them. (There were no court-appointed lawyers as in modern courts.) Thus, the vast majority of colonists accused of a crime had to defend themselves in court, and because they knew practically nothing about law they usually lost.”

Paraphrase:

-The Government’s decisions were mostly based on religion and God, not exactly on the truth.

– When someone was convicted, they had to repent for their sins.

– People were allowed to watch the trials.

-A judge turned to God for the answer in court.

-Trials were not meant to figure out the culprit, but to please God. People were forced to confess to God in court.

-It wasn’t an innocent until-proven guilty system. Most defendants were urged to confess to a crime even if they didn’t commit it.

The Government hired professionals to try and get the defendant to confess, but they hired no one to help the defendant.

-Only rich people could afford a defense attorney!

-Most defendants usually lost.  

My Ideas:

This quote made me realize how unfair the legal system was in the first official English colony. The judge wasn’t guided by real proof or whatever the defendant said. Rather, judges depended on spiritual evidence (like in the Salem witch trials) and relied on God for the answer. No one cared if the accused were actually guilty or not, because they would end up repenting for non-existent sins anyway. Also, the fact that court was public to the people might have been another tactic of punishment for the Government. Getting accused of anything in Colonial America must have been one of the most embarrassing things that could happen to someone. The accused person would have been scorned by their friends, their family, and on top of that, they probably would have lost their most valuable possession: land. The defendant also might be more inclined to confess if people are watching the trial because of the social pressures put upon them.

One of the things I wondered about while reading this was why the Government wanted people to confess to a crime so much. Was it because it would make the Government look more powerful and imposing to the public? It also might be because they wanted to send a message that no lawbreaker would ever succeed in early Colonial America. Whatever the case, the odds were certainly stacked up against the defendant in a trial so it was almost impossible for them to win their case. For one thing, the prosecutors for the trials were hand-picked by the governor, and were almost sure to get the accused to confess. Also, only rich people could afford to hire a defense attorney to aid them in court. The peasants would have to fight for themselves, which could lead to nothing but disaster since they weren’t educated in law practices. This proves how the wealthy were given an extreme advantage in colonial America. 

Keira E.
2015

Colonial punishments
Source: Patrick, Leslie. “Crime and Punishment in Colonial America.” Encyclopedia of American History, Vol. 2, Revised Edition. Facts On File, 2009

“In the 17th century punishments did not aim to rehabilitate. Jails were used primarily to hold suspects awaiting trial. Punishments were physical, publicly inflicted, and intended to make an example of the offender. Shaming penalties such as branding, displaying symbols (as in The Scarlet Letter), ducking, and sitting in stocks and pillory were not used as frequently as were whips and fines. The lash of the whip fell overwhelmingly upon the backs of slaves, servants, apprentices, and the laboring and dependent classes. Fines were reserved for those who had committed infractions and were able to make restitution. This penalty, of course, ruled out servants and slaves, because they did not possess the resources to pay. Thieves paid extra damages in addition to restoring the stolen property. The more times an individual committed a crime, the harsher the penalty.”

Paraphrase:

• Punishments did not attempt to fix, they were made to humiliate and deliver pain
• Various laborers were often whipped
• Humiliating punishments were not used very often
• Richer people who broke the law were sometimes fined
• Servants and slaves did not pay fines because they were not wealthy enough
• Thieves had to repair and return anything they stole, plus they had to pay an extra fee
• If someone had committed a crime many times, their punishment would be worse than if it was their first time

My Ideas: Punishments were not meant to cure someone from being a criminal. I’m sure that authorities were hoping that the painful punishments would prevent people from committing crimes, but it didn’t work very well. Almost everyone committed crimes; from slaves to ministers. The punishments were aiming more towards scaring the criminal into submission. Some infractions were more extreme. For example: murder, which might of been handled by a court. Other disciplines were for more inferior actions, such as a servant ruining his/her master’s clothes. For these types of mistakes, the servant or slave probably would have been whipped. Servants and slaves were not fined due to a lack of resources, but upper class people were sometimes fined. Based on the fact that laborers were not fined because they had a small amount of money, I wonder if other people were fined based on their crime, or how much money they possessed. Another way that the courts/authorities tried to prevent illegal activity was by building up punishments based on how many crimes an individual might have previously committed. The more offenses, the harsher the punishment. I don’t know if this was an effective system. It definitely wouldn’t have stopped people from carrying out crimes a few times, but it might have stopped some from executing excessive violations. I wonder how much harsher the punishments became over time. Did this rule apply to everyone? It presumably did, but the penalties were harsher for non-Europeans than they would have been for Europeans who committed the same crime. The punishment system was unjust and not as effective as possible.