torture

Bodily pain or hurt inflicted with the object of compelling a disclosure of guilt or of knowledge in respect of a crime or its perpetrator. It was imposed by various means, and under sanction of law.

The rack, or question, or other mode of examination by violence to the person, to extort a confession from supposed criminals, and a revelation of their associates. It is to he distinguished from punishment, which usually succeeds a conviction for offences; as it was inflicted in limine, and as part of the introductory process leading to trial and judgment It was wholly unknown to the common and statute law of England, and was forbidden by Magna Carta, ch. 29; 4 Bla. Com. 326. It was gradually introduced throughout the Continent in the 14th-16th centuries — connected with the revival of the Roman law. Lea, Superstition and Force 371-522. It prevailed in Scotland, where the civil law which allowed it obtained: Dig. 48. 18. It was, however, declared contrary to the claim of right, and was expressly prohibited; 7 Anne, c. 21, § 5 (1708). Several instances of its infliction may be found in Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials of Scotland. Although torture was confessedly contrary to the common law of England, it was, nevertheless, often employed as an instrument of state to wring confessions from prominent criminals, — especially in charges of treason. It was usually inflicted by warrant from the privy council. Jardine, Torture 7, 15, 42. Mr. Jardine proves from the records of the privy council that the practice was not infrequent during the time of Elizabeth, and continued to the close of the reign of the first two Stuarts. There is positive evidence that Guy Fawkes was directed to be tortured in regard to the Gunpowder Plot, in the warrant in the king’s handwriting authorizing the commissioners, of whom Coke was one, to examine him upon the rack, “using the gentler tortures first, et sic per gradus ad ima tenditur 1 Jardine, Cr. Tr. Int. 17; 2 id. 106. It was not given up in England till Cromwell's time; Baldwin, Mod. Pol. Inst. 119. An attempt to torture a person to extort a confession of crime is a criminal offence; State v. Hobbs, 2 Tyl. (Vt.) 380. See Miller v. People, 39 111. 457; Hector v. State, 2 Mo. 166, 22 Am. Dec. 454. As to its use in suppressing the Irish rebellion in 1798, see 27 How. St. Tr. 766; see the trial of Gen. Picton, 30 St Tr. 226; 24 L. Q. R. 484; Brown, Narrations of State Trials. See Question; Peine Forte et Dure; Mute. This practice has never obtained in the United States, except in a few instances in New York under the Dutch rule. It is said bo have been used under French law in Quebec.

n. Corporal suffering, inflicted to extort confession from suspected criminals, or in the indulgence of cruel and malevolent motives. The vpord recurs in the history of jurisprudence, denoting pain inflicted on persons by authority now obsolete; also in statutes of modern introduction, relative to prevention of cruelty to animals. The verb "to torture" is seldom met in connection with the first-mentioned meaning, but it is found in the statutes prohibiting cruelty. The torture, in legal history, signifies the rack, or question, or other mode of examination by violence to the person, to extort a confession from supposed criminals, and a revelation of their associates. It is distinguishable from punishment, which usually succeeds a conviction for ofiences; while the torture was inflicted as a part of the introductory process leading to trial and judgment. Though probably disallowed by the earlier common law, the rack was occasionally used, in England, as a police measure for compelling confessions, but Wharton says that it was used in judicial proceedings only once in the reign of Elizabeth, its last infliction having ingham, by Pelton, the proposal was made in the privy council to put the assassin to the rack to discover his accomplices, the judges declared that no such proceeding was allowable. It is wholly contrary to the criminal law as administered in America. In statutes to protect animals from cruelty, " tortm-e " seems used as interchangeable with abuse, cruelty, illtreatment, and the like. Thus, as an example, a statute of New York (1 Laws 1867, 884, cl. 375), the principle of which has been enacted in some other states, provides, that if any person shall overdrive, overload, torture, torment, deprive of necessary sustenance, or unnecessarily or cruelly beat, or needlessly mutilate or kill, any living creature, such offender shall be guilty of a misdemeanor; and a subsequent act (Laws, 1874, oh. 12) declares, that the word " torture, "" torment," or " cruelty " shall be held to include every act, omission, or neglect whereby imjustifiable physical pain, suffering, or death is caused or permitted. The earlier but somewhat narrower English statute (12 & 13 Vict. ch. 92, § 2) enacts, that if any person shall cruelly beat, ill-treat, overdrive, abuse, or torture, &c., any animal, he shall be subject to a penalty. Few decisions have been noticed turning particularly upon the force of the word torture in these enactments. In Budge V. Parsons, 3 Beat §• S. 382; 7 Law J. N. 8. 624; 9 Jur. N. s. 796, it was held that a person who set a fighting-cock to fight another after the other had been disabled, by its thigh being broken, committed an ofience under the English act; but the opinions do not show that any question was made as to which of the vrords used in the act to define the punishable cruelty was the one applicable: the question chiefly discussed was whether a fighting-cock was to be deemed an animal, within the protection of the statute. In Bates ». Mc Cormick, 9 Law T. Rep. sr. s. 175, 12 Irish Com. L. 577, the point was made and decided that setting cocks to fight one another was an offence, within der a statute punishing ' ' every person who shall maliciously and cruelly maim, beat, or torture any horse, &c., — the court held that an indictment charging that defendant did unlawfully, maliciously, and cruelly torture horses, by tying brush and boards to their tails, was too loose and vague. The torture was charged to consist merely in tying brash and boards to the tails of the animals. This act, though very reprehensible, might have been done without producing any torture. If the circumstances attending and consequences produced by the act were such as to produce pain or torture, they should have been averred. In such an indictment, the means of producing the torture must be alleged, so that the court can see that such means have the inevitable and natural tendency to produce the effect in which the crime consists. Torture is pain, anguish, extreme pain or anguish of body or mind, pang, agony, torment. Torture, then, in the statute, must consist in $ome violent, wanton, and cruel act necessarily producing pain and suffering to the animal. The acts described in this indictment might or might not produce extreme pain; the mere act of tying described is not necessarily torture.

punishments. A punishment inflicted in some countries on supposed criminals to induce them to confess their crimes, and to reveal their associates. This absurd and tyrannical practice never was in use in the United States; for no man is bound to accuse himself. Vide Question.