Horace Gray

“ But whether a man shall be put upon his trial for crime without a presentment or indictment by a grand jury of his fellow-citizens depends upon the consequences to himself if he shall be found guilty. ”

“ The disqualification to testify appears to have been limited to those adjudged guilty of treason, felony, forgery, and crimes injuriously affecting by falsehood and fraud the administration of justice, such as perjury, subornation of perjury, suppression of testimony by bribery, conspiring to accuse one of crime, or to procure the absence of a witness, and not to have been extended to cases of private cheats, such as the obtaining of goods by false pretenses, or the uttering of counterfeit coin or forged securities. ”

“ The only mention of informations in the first crimes act of the United States is in the clause providing that no person 'shall be prosecuted, tried, or punished, for an offense not capital, nor for any fine or forfeiture under any penal statute, unless the indictment or information for the same shall be found or instituted within two years from the time of committing the offense, or incurring the fine or forfeiture.' Act April 30, 1790, c. ”

“ The convict is placed in a public place of punishment, common to the whole state, subject to solitary imprisonment, to have his hair cropped, to be clothed in conspicuous prison dress, subjected to hard labor without pay, to hard fare, coarse and meager food, and to severe discipline. ”

“ By the first crime act of the United States, forgery of public securities, or knowingly uttering forged public securities with intent to defraud, as well as treason, murder, piracy, mutiny, robbery, or rescue of a person convicted of a capital crime, was punishable with death; most other offenses were punished by fine and imprisonment; whipping was part of the punishment of stealing or falsifying records, fraudulently acknowledging bail, larceny of goods, or receiving stolen goods ”

“ By the law of England, informations by the attorney general, without the intervention of a grand jury, were not allowed for capital crimes, nor for any felony, by which was understood any offense which at common law occasioned a total forfeiture of the offender's lands or goods, or both. ”

“ Dane, one of the most learned lawyers of his time, and who as a member of the continental congress took a principal part in framing the ordinance of 1787, for the government of the Northwest territory, assumes it as unquestionable that, by virtue of the amendment of the constitution, informations 'cannot be used where either capital or infamous punishment is inflicted.' 7 Dane, Abr. ”

“ What punishments shall be considered as infamous may be affected by the changes of public opinion from one age to another. In former times, being put in the stocks was not considered as necessarily infamous. ”