Court refuses trial by combat, though law is still on the books

[TheNocturnalEgyptian]

A court has rejected a 60-year-old man’s attempt to invoke the ancient right to trial by combat, rather than pay a £25 fine for a minor motoring offence.

Leon Humphreys remained adamant yesterday that his right to fight a champion nominated by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) was still valid under European human rights legislation. He said it would have been a “reasonable” way to settle the matter.

Magistrates sitting at Bury St Edmunds on Friday had disagreed and instead of accepting his offer to take on a clerk from Swansea with “samurai swords, Ghurka knives or heavy hammers”, fined him £200 with £100 costs.

Humphreys, an unemployed mechanic, was taken to court after refusing to pay the original £25 fixed penalty for failing to notify the DVLA that his Suzuki motorcycle was off the road.

After entering a not guilty plea, he threw down his unconventional challenge. Humphreys, from Bury St Edmunds, said: “I was willing to fight a champion put up by the DVLA, but it would have been a fight to the death.”


http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/807031/posts

[osoab]

That is a great way to deal with pissant bureaucrats.

[Joe King]

Yea, only prob with that is that they've probably got the $ to hire a heavyweight champ to fight for them.

[mrnhtbr2232]

Reminds me of this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ceegnWSENQ

[palani]

In trial by battel the litigants never took part. It was done by champions on both sides. Reason being if either litigant died then the suit would not be settled. No sharp edged instruments were used either. The champions beat themselves with sticks until ... well, you can read the rest:


The reafon why it is waged by champions, and not by the parties themfelves, in civil actions, is becaufe, if any party to the fuit dies, the fuit muft abate and be at an end for the prefent; and therefore no judgment could be given for the lands in queftion, if either of the parties were flain in battelt: and alfo that no perfon might claim an exemption from this trial, as was allowed in criminal cafes, where the battel was waged in perfon.

A PICEE of ground is then in due time fet out, of fixty feet fquare, enclofed with lifts, and on one fide a court erected for the judges of the court of common pleas, who attend there in their fcarlet robes; and alfo a bar is prepared for the learned ferjeants at law. When the court fits, which ought to be by funrifing, proclamation is made for the parities, and their champions; who are introduced by two knights, and are dreffed in a fuit of armour, with red fandals, barelegged from the knee downwards, bareheaded, and with bare arms to the elbows. The weapons allowed them are only batons, or ftaves, of an ell long, and a four-cornered leather target; fo that death very feldom enfued this civil combat. In the court military indeed they fought with fword and lance, according to Spelman and Rufhworth; as likewife in France only villeins fought with the buckler and baton, gentlemen armed at all points. And upon this, and other circumftances, the prefident Montefquieuu hath with great ingenuity not only deduced the impious cuftom of private duels upon imaginary points of honour, but hath alfo traced the heroic madnefs of knight errantry, from the fame original of judicial combats. But to proceed.

.{FS}
t Co. Litt. 294. Dyverfite des courts. 304.
u Sp. L. b. 28. c. 20. 22.
.{FE}
T t 2
WHEN
.p 340
PRIVATE WRONGS.
BOOK III.
Ch. 22.
WHEN the champions, thus armed with batons, arrive within the lifts or place of combat, the champion of the tenant then takes his adverfary by the hand, and makes oath that the tenements in difpute are not the right of the demandant; and the champion of the demandant, then taking the other by the hand, fwears in the fame manner that they are; fo that each champion is, or ought to be, thoroughly perfuaded of the truth of the caufe he fithts for. Next an oath againft forcery and enchantment is to be taken by both the champions, in this or a fimilar form; hear this, ye juftices, that I have this day neither eat, drank, nor have upon me, neither bone, ftone, ne grafs; nor any inchantment, forcery, or witchcraft, whereby the law of God may be abafed, or the law of the devil exalted. So help me God and his faints.”

THE battel is thus begun, and the combatants are bound to fight till the ftars appear in the evening: and, if the champion of the tenant can defend himfelf till the ftars appear, the tenant fhall prevail in his caufe; for it is fufficient for him to maintain his ground, and make it a drawn battel, he being already in poffeffion: but, if victory declares itfelf for either party, for him is judgment finally given. This victory may arife, from the death of either of the champions: which indeed hath rarely happened; the whole ceremony, to fay the truth, bearing a near refemblance to certain rural athletic diverfions, which are probably derived from this original. Or victory is obtained, if either champion proves recreant, that is, yields, and pronounces the horrible word of craven; a word of difgrace and obloquy, rather than of any determinate meaning. But a horrible word it indeed is to the vanquifhed champion: fince as a punifhment to him for forfeiting the land of his principal by pronouncing that fhameful word, he is condemned, as a recreant, amittere liberam legem, that is, to become infamous and not be accounted liber et legalis bomo; being fuppofed by the event to be proved
forfworn,
.P 341
PRIVATE WRONGS.
BOOK III.
Ch. 22.
forfworn, and therefore never to be put upon a jury or admitted as a witnefs in any caufe.

THIS is the form of a trial by battel; a trial which the tenant, or defendant in a writ of right, has it in his election at this day to demand; and which was the only decifion of fuch writ of right after the conqueft, till Henry the fecond by confent of parliament introduced the grand affifew, a peculiar fpecies of trial by jury, in concurrence therewith; giving the tenant his choice of either the one or the other. Which example, of difcountenancing thefe judicial combats, was imitated about a century afterwards in France, by an edict of Louis the pious, A. D. 1260, and foon after by the reft of Europe. The eftablifhment of this alternative, Glanvil, chief juftice to Henry the fecond, and probably his advifer herein, confiders as a moft noble improvement, as in fact it was, of the lawx.

[Awoke]

I don't understand why the use the letter "f" instead of "s" to begin with. On top of that, they only substitute it some of the time instead of all the time.

I have a King James replica bible that is a replica of a 400 year old KJV Bible, written in old caligraphy, and they do the same thing in it too. Diffcult to read with those f's in there, especially in caligraphy.

[palani]

I don't understand why the use the letter "f" instead of "s" to begin with. On top of that, they only substitute it some of the time instead of all the time.

I have a King James replica bible that is a replica of a 400 year old KJV Bible, written in old caligraphy, and they do the same thing in it too. Diffcult to read with those f's in there, especially in caligraphy.

A limitation of modern typewriter fonts. It actually isn't an "f" but is instead a long "s". If you were to look at the actual book you would find the long "s" and the "f" differ by a crossbar.

If you examine sentence construction you might come to the conclusion that I have ... people examined problems and wrote in a logical manner much more intelligently then than now.

[Ash_Williams]

I don't understand why the use the letter "f" instead of "s" to begin with. On top of that, they only substitute it some of the time instead of all the time.

There used to be two ways of writing lowercase s. The "long s" was used at the beginning or middle of words. It is a reallly stretched out s that looks more like an f. Think of the integral sign in calculus.

If you did OCR on an old document written this way, the software would probably interpret the long s as an f.

[horseshoe3]

I always thought that it was done for a double s. The first s is long and the second one fits inside and behind the first one. ie. We the Congrefs of the...

[palani]

Not necessarily. Look at the use of the long "s" in "master/mafter"


THE three great relations in private life are, 1. That of mafter and fervant; which is founded in convenience, whereby a man is directed to call in the affiftance of others, where his own fkill and labour will not be fufficeint to anfwer the cares incumbent upon him. 2. That of bufband and wife; which is founded in nature, but modified by civil fociety: the one directing man to continue and mulpiply his fpecies, the other prefcribing the manner in which that natural impulfe muft be confined and regulated. 3. That of parent and child, which is confequential to that ofmarriage, being it's principal end and defign: and it is by virtue of this relation that infants are protected, maintained, and educated.

Note also Blackstone's use of the word "private" above. Open up your "private" life to the public by requesting a marriage license and you lose the private aspects.