Stephen Johnson Field

“ By the repeal of the 13th section of the act of 1813 all criminal proceedings taken under it fell. There can be no legal conviction, nor any valid judgment pronounced upon conviction, unless the law creating the offence be at the time in existence. By the repeal the legislative will is expressed that no further proceedings be had under the act repealed. In Norris v. Crocker the court said that, as the plaintiff's right to recover in that case depended entirely on the statute, its repeal deprived the court of jurisdiction over the subject. ”

“ That section provided that any person who should, knowingly and willingly, obstruct or hinder the claimant, his agent, or attorney, in seizing or arresting the fugitive from labor, or should rescue him from such claimant, agent, or attorney, when arrested by the authority given by the act, or should harbor or conceal him, after notice that he was a fugitive from labor, should forfeit and pay for each of these offences the sum of five hundred dollars, to be recovered by the claimant in an action of debt. ”

“ Under the second statute the penalty was, for the first offence, a fine of five hundred pounds and twelve months' imprisonment; for the second offence the fine was one thousand pounds and two years' imprisonment. The latter act, said Lord Mansfield, seems to be a repeal of the former act; it was made to supply the deficiencies of the former. Accordingly, the defendant, who had been convicted under both statutes, was sentenced under the last. In Rex v. Davis, [4] it appeared that there were two statutes against killing deer in an inclosed park. ”