Category:
Law
Law
Unusual Punishments of the Theodosian Code
In 429 AD the Roman emperor Theodosius II established a commission to write down all the laws of the Roman Empire since 312, covering all the Christian emperors. The resulting work was the Codex Theodosianus (or Theodisian Code).In his book The Triumph of Christianity, biblical scholar Bart Ehrman lists some of the more unusual punishments included in the codex:
- Imperial bureaucrats who accepted bribes were to have their hands cut off (Theodosian Code l.16.7)
- ineffective guardians of girls who had been seduced were to have molten lead poured down their throats (Theodosian Code 9.24.1)
- tax collectors who treated women tax delinquents rudely were to "be done to death with exquisite tortures"
- anyone who served as an informer was to be strangled and " the tongue of envy cut off from its roots and plucked out" (Theodosian Code 10.10.2)
- slaves who informed on their masters were to be crucified (Theodosian Code 9.5.1.1)
- anyone guilty of parricide "shall not be subjected to the sword or to fire or to any other customary penalty, but he shall be sewed in a leather sack, and, confined within its deadly closeness, he shall share the companionship of serpents" and then thrown into a river or ocean "so that while still alive he may begin to lose the enjoyment of all the elements" (Theodosian Code 9.15.1)
In olden times it was the custom to punish the parricide, the man who had raised his murderous hand against his father, by casting him into the depths of the sea in a sack in which were placed a cock, a monkey, and a serpent. The intention of those law-givers who framed such a law, which seems cruel in our times, was to punish the criminal by the company of hurtful and hateful beasts.
Posted By: Alex - Fri Dec 13, 2024 -
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Category: Law, Ancient Times
Wrong Corpse, Wrong Decapitation
Posted By: Paul - Sat Nov 02, 2024 -
Comments (4)
Category: Death, Law, Identity Mistakes, Thefts and Mix-ups, Bodies, Corpses, Remnant Parts
Estate Willed by Talkie
Video wills have become quite common, but they weren't back in 1931. So the unnamed testator described below was breaking new ground by creating one (or rather, a filmed will).I particularly like the detail that he left instructions on where everyone should sit while watching the film, so that he could look at each person directly from the grave.
Wichita Eagle - Jan 10, 1931
Posted By: Alex - Sat Mar 30, 2024 -
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Category: Death, Inheritance and Wills, Law, Movies, 1930s
Is it marijuana or alfalfa?
Peter Hlookoff had an unusual strategy to avoid being convicted for possession of marijuana — he always carried a container of alfalfa with him.His reasoning was that alfalfa and marijuana smell similar (so he claimed). So if the police ever arrested him for possession of marijuana he could claim that it was actually alfalfa they had smelled (or seen him smoking).
This strategy was put to the test in Dec 1967 when the police raided his apartment and arrested him for smoking pot. During the subsequent court case his defense led to the magistrate arranging for a court employee to smoke marijuana so that its smell could be compared to alfalfa.
Victoria Times Colonist - May 10, 1968
Unfortunately the courtroom experiment was cancelled before it took place, and the magistrate ended up finding Hlookoff guilty. He didn't buy Hlookoff's follow-up argument that if, perhaps, it had been marijuana he was smoking then someone must have (without his knowledge) put marijuana in his alfalfa container.
The Vancouver Province - July 3, 1968
Hlookoff's roommate, Marcel Horne (a professional firebreather whose stage name was 'El Diablo'), later wrote an autobiography in which he revealed that, yeah, they were absolutely smoking pot when the police raided their apartment:
It was now December 12, 1967, Peter Hlookoff, who was now co-editor of the Georgia Straight, and I were up in my room around one o'clock in the morning. I was lying under a sun lamp to get a tan and was high on grass. Peter sat in the middle of the floor with a roach in one hand and enough dope for three cigarettes in a plastic tube on the floor beside him.
We were rapping away very stoned, when we heard someone coming up the stairs. The next thing we knew two cops in uniform walked into the room. Peter tried to drop the roach but the cop saw him. I was too stoned to think properly so I just lay there watching the nightmare. The cops put us up against the wall and frisked us. "Who does the marijuana belong to?" We both answered, "What marijuana?"
We were rapping away very stoned, when we heard someone coming up the stairs. The next thing we knew two cops in uniform walked into the room. Peter tried to drop the roach but the cop saw him. I was too stoned to think properly so I just lay there watching the nightmare. The cops put us up against the wall and frisked us. "Who does the marijuana belong to?" We both answered, "What marijuana?"
image source: Annals of the Firebreather (1973), by Marcel Horne
Posted By: Alex - Wed Mar 27, 2024 -
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Category: Drugs, Smoking and Tobacco, Law, 1960s
Working on Sunday
The UK's Shops Act made it illegal to operate a shop on Sunday... unless one was Jewish (since the Jewish observed the sabbath on Saturday). So business owner Mike Robertson figured that to open his stores on Sunday he simply had to make his staff convert to Judaism.The Shops Act had other oddities. According to the London Telegraph, a shop could stay open if it was "in an officially designated 'holiday resort area'" or if it restricted sales to "certain kinds of perishable goods, like fruit, flowers and vegetables; medical and surgical appliances, newspapers, cigarettes and refreshments."
Bristol Western Daily Press - Mar 8, 1977
Posted By: Alex - Fri Mar 22, 2024 -
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Category: Business, Law, Religion, 1970s
The Fifth Dimension Sings “The Declaration of Independence”
Was this the secret origin of SCHOOLHOUSE ROCK?
Posted By: Paul - Mon Feb 26, 2024 -
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Category: Law, Music, Politics, PSA’s, Twentieth Century
Kilty as charged
A case of being guilty of being Kilty.When the magistrates' clerk asked: "Are you guilty?" he thought he had been asked, "Are you Kilty?" He replied "Yes" and was duly convicted
The Guardian - Feb 25, 1969
Posted By: Alex - Sat Feb 10, 2024 -
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Category: Law, Judges, Odd Names, 1960s
The Judge who wanted to be fully informed
Nov 1976: Roxbury District Court Judge Elwood McKenney, presiding over a cocaine possession case, announced that he would need to try cocaine himself before he made his ruling... in order to be able to make an informed decision. He recessed the trial until he had done so.
Palo Alto Times - Nov 2, 1976
Judge Elwood McKenney
About a month later, McKenney abandoned his decision to try cocaine, saying that all the publicity about it had distorted his intent.
But he then proceeded to rule that the Massachusetts statutes forbidding the possession of cocaine were unconstitutional.
Obviously his ruling must have been dismissed or overturned at some point, otherwise cocaine would now be legal in Massachusetts. But I haven't been able to figure out when that happened.
Boston Globe - Dec 11, 1976
Posted By: Alex - Thu Jan 18, 2024 -
Comments (1)
Category: Drugs, Law, Judges, 1970s
Unreasonable suspicion
Does a police officer have the right to search your car if you don't laugh when he asks you if you have any "firearms, drugs, cats, dogs, alligators, and weapons" in your car? The court said no.United States v. Holloway, 2023 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 187752 (E.D. Pa. Oct. 18, 2023):
Officer Smart testified that he regularly asks individuals a question concerning possession of "firearms, drugs, cats, dogs, alligators, and weapons" at vehicle stops because it "helps [him] read people's body language and their demeanor." … He further testified that he was trained by other officers to infer that an individual who does not laugh at such a question is nervous about either firearms or narcotics … and that he typically receives a "laughing response" to that question ….
While courts "do give considerable deference to police officers' determinations of reasonable suspicion, … courts do not owe them blind deference." United States v. Alvin, 701 F. App'x 151, 156 (3d Cir. 2017) (internal quotations omitted). The Court does not find that laughing at a law enforcement officer while being questioned about drugs and weapons would be an appropriate response. Moreover, failing to laugh at a bizarre question while being questioned about drugs and weapons does not create reasonable suspicion to remove an individual from a car after a traffic violation.
While courts "do give considerable deference to police officers' determinations of reasonable suspicion, … courts do not owe them blind deference." United States v. Alvin, 701 F. App'x 151, 156 (3d Cir. 2017) (internal quotations omitted). The Court does not find that laughing at a law enforcement officer while being questioned about drugs and weapons would be an appropriate response. Moreover, failing to laugh at a bizarre question while being questioned about drugs and weapons does not create reasonable suspicion to remove an individual from a car after a traffic violation.
via Fourth Amendment.com
Posted By: Alex - Thu Oct 26, 2023 -
Comments (1)
Category: Law, Police and Other Law Enforcement
Ill-Treating Prawns
We've previously posted about a British case involving cruelty to goldfish. Here the British courts took up the question of whether it's possible to be cruel to prawns (aka shrimp), but dropped the case when it decided that prawns were insects and so not covered by anti-cruelty laws. They're actually crustaceans, but close enough I guess.
Feb 28, 1974 - Minneapolis Star
Posted By: Alex - Mon Sep 25, 2023 -
Comments (2)
Category: Insects and Spiders, Law, Sadism, Cruelty, Punishment, and Torture, United Kingdom
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