law. When sentence of death, the most terrible and highest judgment in our laws, is pronounced, the immediate inseparable consequence by the common law is attainder. For when it is now clear beyond all dispute, that the criminal is no longer fit to live upon the earth, but is to be exterminated as a monster and a bane to human society, the law sets a note of infamy upon him, puts him out of its protection, and takes no farther care of him than barely to see him executed. He is then called attaint, attinctus, stained, or blackened. He is no longer of any credit or reputation; he cannot be a witness in any court; neither is he capable of performing the functions of another man: for, by an anticipation of his punishment, he is already dead in law. This is after judgment: for there is great difference between a man convicted and attainted; though they are frequently through inaccuracy confounded together. After conviction only, a man is liable to none of these disabilities: for there is still in contemplation of law a possibility of his innocence. Something may be offered in arrest of judgment: the indictment may be erroneous, which will render his guilt uncertain, and thereupon the present conviction may be quashed; he may obtain a pardon, or be allowed the benefit of clergy; both which suppose some latent sparks of merit, which plead in extenuation of his fault. But when judgment is once pronounced, both law and fact conspire to prove him completely guilty; and there is not the remotest possibility left of anything to be said in his favour. Upon judgment, therefore, of death, and not before, the attainder of a criminal commences: or upon such circumstances as are equivalent to judgment of death; as judgment of outlawry on a capital crime, pronounced for absconding or fleeing from justice, which tacitly confesses the guilt: and therefore, upon judgment either of outlawry, or of death, for treason or felony, a man shall be said to be attainted.

A person attainted of high treason forfeits all his lands, tenements, and hereditaments; his blood is corrupted, and he and his posterity rendered base; and this corruption of blood cannot be taken off but by act of parliament.

Attainders may be reversed or falsified, (i.e. proved articles to be false) by writ of error, or by plea. If by writ of error, it must be by the king's leave, &c.; and when by plea, it may be by denying the treason, Blood, pleading a pardon by act of parliament, &c.

Persons may be attainted by act of parliament.—Acts of attainder of criminals have been passed in several reigns, on the discovery of plots and rebellions, from the reign of king Charles II. when an act was made for the attainder of several persons guilty of the murder of king Charles I. Among acts of this nature, that for attainting Sir John Fenwick, for conspiring against king William, is the most remarkable; it being made to attaint and convict him of high treason on the oath of one witness, just after a law had been enacted, "That no person should be tried or attainted of high treason where corruption of blood is incurred, but by the oath of two lawful witnesses, unless the party confess, stand mute, &c." Stat. 7 and 8 W. III. cap. 3. But in the case of Sir John Fenwick there was something extraordinary; for he was indicted of treason on the oaths of two witnesses, though but only one could be produced against him on his trial.

Attaint, is a writ that lies after judgment against a jury of twelve men that have given false verdict in any court of record, in an action real or personal, where the debt or damages amount to above 40s. Stat. 5 and 34 Ed. III. c. 7. It is called attaint, because the party that obtains it endeavours thereby to stain or taint the credit of the jury with perjury, by whose verdict he is grieved.

The jury who are to try this false verdict must be twenty-four, and are called the grand jury; for the law wills wills not that the oath of one jury of twelve men should be attainted or fet aside by an equal number, nor by less indeed than double the former. And he that brings the attaint can give no other evidence to the grand jury, than what was originally given to the petit. For as their verdict is now trying, and the question is whether or no they did right upon the evidence that appeared to them, the law adjudged it the highest absurdity to produce any subsequent proof upon such trial, and to condemn the prior jurisdiction for not believing evidence which they never knew. But those against whom it is brought are allowed, in the affirmance of the first verdict, to produce new matter; because the petit jury may have formed their verdict upon evidence of their own knowledge, which never appeared in court; and because very terrible was the judgment which the common law inflicted upon them, if the grand jury found their verdict a false one. The judgment was, 1. That they should lose their liberam legem, and become for ever infamous. 2. That they should forfeit all their goods and chattels. 3. That their lands and tenements should be seized into the king's hands. 4. That their wives and children should be thrown out of doors. 5. That their houses should be rased and thrown down. 6. That their trees should be rooted up. 7. That their meadows should be ploughed. 8. That their bodies should be cast into jail. 9. That the party should be restored to all that he lost by reason of the unjust verdict. But as the severity of this punishment had its usual effect, in preventing the law from being executed, therefore by the statute 11 Hen. VII. c. 24, revived by 23 Hen. VIII. c. 3, and made perpetual by 13 Eliz. c. 25, it is allowed to be brought after the death of the party, and a more moderate punishment was inflicted upon attainted jurors; viz. perpetual infamy, and if the cause of action were above L.40 value, a forfeiture of L.20 a-piece by the jurors; or, if under L.40, then L.5 a-piece; to be divided between the king and the party injured. So that a man may now bring an attaint either upon the statute or at common law, at his election; and in both of them may reverse the former judgment. But the practice of setting aside verdicts upon motion, and granting new trials, has so superseeded the use of both sorts of attaints, that there is hardly any instance of an attaint later than the 16th century.

Attaint, among farriers, a knock or hurt in a horse's leg, proceeding either from a blow with another horse's foot, or from an over-reach in frothy weather, when a horse, being rough-shod, or having shoes with long caulkers, strikes his hinder feet against his fore-leg.

Attainted, in law, is applied to a person's being under attainer. See Attainder.

Attalicæ vestes, in antiquity, garments made of a kind of cloth of gold. They took the denomination from Attalus, surnamed Philometer, a wealthy king of Pergamus, who was the first, according to Pliny, who procured gold to be woven into cloth.