law, is the sentence pronounced by the court upon the matter contained in the record. Judgments are of four sorts. First, where the facts are confessed by the parties, and the law determined by the court; as in case of judgment upon demurrer: secondly, where the law is admitted by the parties, and the facts disputed; as in the case of judgment on verdict: thirdly, where both the fact and the law arising thereon are admitted by the defendant; which is the case of judgments by confession or default: or, lastly, where the plaintiff is convinced that either fact, or law, or both, are insufficient to support his action, and therefore abandons or withdraws his prosecution; which is the case in judgments upon a nonsuit or retraction.

The judgment, though pronounced or awarded by the judges, is not their determination or sentence, but the determination and sentence of the law. It is the conclusion that naturally and regularly follows from the premises of law and fact, which stands thus: Against him who hath rode over my corn, I may recover damages by law; but A hath rode over my corn; therefore I shall recover damages against A. If the major proposition be denied, this is a demurrer in law: if the minor, it is then an issue of fact: but if both be confessed or determined to be right, the conclusion or judgment of the court cannot but follow. Which

Vol. IX. Part I. Judgment obtained a pardon, he is in the right to plead it as soon as possible. See Pardon.

Praying the benefit of clergy may also be ranked among the motions in arrest of judgment. See Benefit of Clergy.

If all these resources fail, the court must pronounce that judgment which the law hath annexed to the crime. Of these some are capital, which extend to the life of the offender, and consist generally in being hanged by the neck till dead; though in very atrocious crimes other circumstances of terror, pain, or disgrace, are superadded: as, in treasons of all kinds, being drawn or dragged to the place of execution; in high treason affecting the king's person or government, embowelling alive, beheading, and quartering; and in murder, a public dissection. And in case of any treason committed by a female, the judgment is to be burned alive. But the humanity of the English nation has authorized, by a tacit consent, an almost general mitigation of such parts of these judgments as favour of torture or cruelty: a fledge or hurdle being usually allowed to such traitors as are condemned to be drawn; and there being very few instances (and those accidental or by negligence) of any persons being embowelled or burned, till previously deprived of sensation by strangling. Some punishments consist in exile or banishment, by abjuration of the realm, or transportation to the American colonies; others, in loss of liberty, by perpetual or temporary imprisonment. Some extend to confiscation, by forfeiture of lands, or moveables, or both, or of the profits of lands for life: others induce a disability of holding offices or employments, being heirs, executors, and the like. Some, though rarely, occasion a mutilation or dismembering, by cutting off the hand or ears: others fix a lasting stigma on the offender, by flitting the nostrils or branding in the hand or face. Some are merely pecuniary, by stated or discretionary fines: and, lastly, there are others that consist principally in their ignominy, though most of them are mixed with some degree of corporeal pain; and these are inflicted chiefly for such crimes as either arise from indigence, or render even opulence disgraceful. Such as whipping, hard labour in the house of correction, the pillory, the stocks, and the ducking-stool.

Disgusting as this catalogue may seem, it will afford pleasure to a British reader, and do honour to the British laws, to compare it with that shocking apparatus of death and torment to be met with in the criminal codes of almost every other nation in Europe. And it is moreover one of the glories of our laws, that the nature, though not always the quantity or degree, of punishment is ascertained for every offence; and that it is not left in the breast of any judge, nor even of a jury, to alter that judgment which the law has beforehand ordained for every subject alike, without respect of persons. For, if judgments were to be the private opinions of the judge, men would then be slaves to their magistrates; and would live in society, without knowing exactly the conditions and obligations which it lays them under. And, besides, as this prevents oppression on the one hand; so, on the other, it stifles all hopes of impunity or mitigation, with which an offender might flatter himself if his punishment depended on the humour or discretion of the court. Whereas, where an established penalty is annexed to crimes, the criminal may read their certain consequence in that law, which ought to be the unvaried rule, as it is the inflexible judge, of his actions.

Judgment of God. See Judicium Dei.