in law. When a jury has given a verdict upon trial, finding the prisoner guilty, he is said to be convicted of the crime whereof he stands indicted. See TRIAL.

When the offender is thus convicted, there are two collateral circumstances that immediately arise. 1. On conviction in general for any felony, the reasonable expenses of prosecution are by statute 25 Geo. II. c. 36, to be allowed the prosecutor out of the county-stock, if he petitions the judge for that purpose; and by statute 27 Geo. II. c. 3, poor persons, bound over Conviction to give evidence, are likewise intitled to be paid their charges, as well without conviction as with it. 2. On a conviction of larceny in particular, the prosecutor shall have restitution of his goods by virtue of the statute 21 Hen. VIII. c. 11. For by the common law there was no restitution of goods upon an indictment; because it is at the suit of the king only; and therefore the party was enforced to bring an appeal of robbery, in order to have his goods again. But, it being considered that the party prosecuting the offender by indictment, deserves to the full as much encouragement as he who prosecutes by appeal, this statute was made, which exacts, that if any person be convicted of larceny by the evidence of the party robbed, he shall have full restitution of his money, goods, and chattels, or the value of them out of the offender's goods, if he has any, by a writ to be granted by the justices. And the construction of this act having been in great measure conformable to the law of appeals, it has therefore in practice superceded the use of appeals of larceny. For instance, as formerly upon appeals, so now upon indictments of larceny, this writ of restitution shall reach the goods so stolen, notwithstanding the property of them is endeavoured to be altered by sale in market overt. And though this may seem somewhat hard upon the buyer, yet the rule of law is, that spoliatus debet ante omnia restituiri, especially when he has used all the diligence in his power to convict the felon. And, since the case is reduced to this hard necessity, that either the owner or the buyer must suffer; the law prefers the right of the owner, who has done a meritorious act by pursuing a felon to condign punishment, to the right of the buyer, whose merit is only negative, that he has been guilty of no unfair transaction. And it is now usual for the court, upon the conviction of a felon, to order, without any writ, immediate restitution of such goods as are brought into court, to be made to the several prosecutors. Or else, secondly, without such writ of restitution, the party may peaceably retake his goods wherever he happens to find them, unless a new property be fairly acquired therein. Or, lastly, if the felon be convicted and pardoned, or be allowed his clergy, the party robbed may bring his action of trover against him for his goods, and recover satisfaction in damages. But such action lies not before prosecution; for so felonies would be made up and healed; and also recaption is unlawful, if it be done with intention to smother and compound the larceny; it then becoming the heinous offence of theft-bote.

It is not uncommon, when a person is convicted of a misdemeanor, which principally and more immediately affects some individual, as a battery, imprisonment, or the like, for the court to permit the defendant to speak with the prosecutor, before any judgment is pronounced; and if the prosecutor declares himself satisfied, to inflict but a trivial punishment. This is done to reimburse the prosecutor his expenses, and make him some private amends, without the trouble and circuitry of a civil action. But it is surely a dangerous practice: and, though it may be entrusted to the prudence and discretion of the judges in the superior courts of record, it ought never to be allowed in local or inferior jurisdictions, such as the quarter-sessions: where prosecutions for assaults are by this means too frequently commenced, rather for private lucre than for the great ends of public justice. Above all, it should never be suffered, where the testimony of the prosecutor himself is necessary to convict the defendant: for by this means the rules of evidence are entirely subverted; the prosecutor becomes in effect a plaintiff, and yet is suffered to bear witness for himself. Nay, even a voluntary forgiveness by the party injured, ought not, in true policy, to intercept the stroke of justice. "This (says an elegant writer who pleads with equal strength for the certainty, as for the lenity of punishment), may be an act of good nature and humanity, but it is contrary to the good of the public. For although a private citizen may dispense with satisfaction for his private injury, he cannot remove the necessity of public example. The right of punishing belongs not to any one individual in particular, but to the society in general, or to the sovereign who represents that society; and a man may renounce his own portion of this right, but he cannot give up that of others."

theology, expresses the first degree of repentance, wherein the sinner becomes sensible of his guilt, of the evil nature of sin, and of the danger of his own ways.