The jury of matrons was a form of special jury at English common law, usually used to resolve legal disputes over whether or not a party to a legal action was pregnant. The practice also existed in Australia.[1]
The civil jury of matrons was used to determine whether a recently widowed woman was pregnant with what was presumed to be her late husband's child. Such a pregnancy could delay or prevent the late husband's property from passing to his father or brother, if he died without male heirs. Civil matrons juries were composed of twelve knights and twelve matrons, summoned by a writ de ventre inspiciendo ("to inspect the belly").[2] Civil juries of matrons appear to have largely died out by the turn of the 19th century and became obsolete with the Married Women's Property Act 1882.
Criminal juries
Women convicted of capital crimes were permitted to plead that they were "quick with child" (that is, the motions of the foetus could be felt), and to have this claim tested by a group of six women. If the woman was found to be quick with child then she was reprieved by default until the next hanging time, though this could result in further reprieve or commutation (lessening of sentence) depending on the nursing needs of the child and nature of the offence. Criminal juries of matrons were customarily drawn from the women observing the proceedings.
The use of matrons' juries in a criminal context was documented as early as 1387, in language which suggests that it was already a customary procedure. By the sixteenth century, women who successfully pleaded their belly, as the practice was colloquially known, were frequently either pardoned or granted a lesser sentence, such as penal transportation. With the decline of capital offences and the rise of a more sophisticated medical understanding of pregnancy, the practice was increasingly regarded as obsolete, and was generally regarded as archaic and ridiculed in the press on the rare occasions it was employed in the 19th century.
The jury of matrons was used at least eleven times during the twentieth century, before its abolition in 1931. This amounts to over 10% of all criminal trials during this period in which a woman was sentenced to death.[3] One well-known example was the trial of Ada Annie Williams, who was sentenced to death in December 1914 for the murder of her four-year-old son. She received a reprieve until delivery on account of pregnancy and subsequently had her sentence commuted.[4][5] The common law was superseded by the abolitionary Sentence of Death (Expectant Mothers) Act 1931,[6] which was rendered redundant (in the case of convictions for murder) in 1965 and in all other cases for all other remaining capital offences (none of which had in fact seen executions since 1965) by the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 which also formally repealed the 1931 Act as unnecessary due to its complete abolition of the death penalty.
Abuse
The practice of drawing of jurors from the observers and lack of a process vetting the jurors' expertise and honesty opened the possibility of stacking the jury pool, leading one eighteenth century commentator to complain that female thieves would have "Matrons of [their] own Profession ready at hand, who, right or wrong, bring their wicked Companions quick with Child to the great Impediment of Justice."[7]
John Gay’s The Beggar's Opera alludes to the idea that women awaiting trial or temporarily reprieved from hanging by virtue of an inaccurate diagnosis of pregnancy would sometimes attempt to conceive by their jailers in hopes of pardon. The context of the allusion suggests that Gay expected theatre-goers to be familiar with the notion.
In what was presumably an attempt to combat the practice, the law held that a woman was not entitled to a second reprieve, regardless of whether she has become pregnant a second time, even if the second fetus has quickened. In such an event, the jailer was subject to a fine for "keeping her so slackly".[8] Scholarly review of the records of the Old Bailey and Assizes suggest that this provision was not strictly enforced.
↑ Means, Cyril (1971). "The Phoenix of Abortional Freedom". New York Law Forum. 17 (2): 335–410. PMID16602212.
↑ Smith, Alexander (1714). A Complete History of the Lives and Robberies of the Most Notorious Highwaymen, Footpads, Shoplifts, & Cheats of Both Sexes (2nded.). London. pp.2:185. cited in Oldham 1985
↑ The Office of the Clerk of Assize containing the form and method of the proceedings at the Assizes and General Gaol-delivery as also on the crown and nisi prius side (2nded.). S. Roycroft for Henry Twyford. 1682. p.63. If after she is reprieved and delivered of her Child, and before the next Gaol deliver, she shall be with Child again, though she be quick with Child, Execution shall not be stayed, but shall be put to Execution presently; but the truth of the matter being enquired of, and found; the Sheriff or Gaoler which had the custody of her shall be fined for keeping her so slackly that she had the company of a man.
Abortion in the United Kingdom is de facto available under the terms of the Abortion Act 1967 in Great Britain and the Abortion (No.2) Regulations 2020 in Northern Ireland. The procurement of an abortion remains a criminal offence in Great Britain under the Offences Against the Person Act 1861, although the Abortion Act provides a legal defence for both the pregnant woman and her doctor in certain cases. Although a number of abortions did take place before the 1967 Act, there have been around 10 million abortions in the United Kingdom. Around 200,000 abortions are carried out in England and Wales each year and just under 14,000 in Scotland; the most common reason cited under the ICD-10 classification system for around 98% of all abortions is "risk to woman's mental health."
Capital punishment in the United Kingdom predates the formation of the UK, having been used within the British Isles from ancient times until the second half of the 20th century. The last executions in the United Kingdom were by hanging, and took place in 1964; capital punishment for murder was suspended in 1965 and finally abolished in 1969. Although unused, the death penalty remained a legally defined punishment for certain offences such as treason until it was completely abolished in 1998; the last execution for treason took place in 1946. In 2004, Protocol No. 13 to the European Convention on Human Rights became binding on the United Kingdom; it prohibits the restoration of the death penalty as long as the UK is a party to the convention.
A pardon is a government decision to allow a person to be relieved of some or all of the legal consequences resulting from a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the jurisdiction.
Pleading the belly was a process in English common law which permitted a woman in the later stages of pregnancy to receive a reprieve of her death sentence until after she bore her child. The plea was available at least as early as 1387 and was eventually rendered obsolete by the Sentence of Death Act 1931, which stated that an expecting mother would automatically have her death sentence commuted to life imprisonment with hard labour.
Capital punishment – the process of sentencing convicted offenders to death for the most serious crimes and carrying out that sentence, as ordered by a legal system – first appeared in New Zealand in a codified form when New Zealand became a British colony in 1840. It was first carried out with a public hanging in Victoria Street, Auckland in 1842, while the last execution occurred in 1957 at Mount Eden Prison, also in Auckland. In total, 85 people have been lawfully executed in New Zealand.
Pregnancy discrimination is a type of employment discrimination that occurs when expectant women are fired, not hired, or otherwise discriminated against due to their pregnancy or intention to become pregnant. Common forms of pregnancy discrimination include not being hired due to visible pregnancy or likelihood of becoming pregnant, being fired after informing an employer of one's pregnancy, being fired after maternity leave, and receiving a pay dock due to pregnancy. Pregnancy discrimination may also take the form of denying reasonable accommodations to workers based on pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions. Pregnancy discrimination has also been examined to have an indirect relationship with the decline of a mother's physical and mental health. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women prohibits dismissal on the grounds of maternity or pregnancy and ensures right to maternity leave or comparable social benefits. The Maternity Protection Convention C 183 proclaims adequate protection for pregnancy as well. Though women have some protection in the United States because of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, it has not completely curbed the incidence of pregnancy discrimination. The Equal Rights Amendment could ensure more robust sex equality ensuring that women and men could both work and have children at the same time.
The Offences against the Person Act 1861 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It consolidated provisions related to offences against the person from a number of earlier statutes into a single Act. For the most part these provisions were, according to the draftsman of the Act, incorporated with little or no variation in their phraseology. It is one of a group of Acts sometimes referred to as the Criminal Law Consolidation Acts 1861. It was passed with the object of simplifying the law. It is essentially a revised version of an earlier consolidation act, the Offences Against the Person Act 1828, incorporating subsequent statutes.
The Homicide Act 1957 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was enacted as a partial reform of the common law offence of murder in English law by abolishing the doctrine of constructive malice, reforming the partial defence of provocation, and by introducing the partial defences of diminished responsibility and suicide pact. It restricted the use of the death penalty for murder.
Murder is an offence under the common law legal system of England and Wales. It is considered the most serious form of homicide, in which one person kills another with the intention to unlawfully cause either death or serious injury. The element of intentionality was originally termed malice aforethought, although it required neither malice nor premeditation. Baker, chapter 14 states that many killings done with a high degree of subjective recklessness were treated as murder from the 12th century right through until the 1974 decision in DPP v Hyam.
Rape is a type of sexual assault initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, under threat or manipulation, by impersonation, or with a person who is incapable of giving valid consent.
In pregnancy terms, quickening is the moment in pregnancy when the pregnant woman starts to feel the fetus's movement in the uterus. It was believed that the quickening marked the moment that a soul entered the fetus, termed ensoulment.
Capital punishment in Australia has been abolished in all jurisdictions since 1985. Queensland abolished the death penalty in 1922. Tasmania did the same in 1968. The Commonwealth abolished the death penalty in 1973, with application also in the Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory. Victoria did so in 1975, South Australia in 1976, and Western Australia in 1984. New South Wales abolished the death penalty for murder in 1955, and for all crimes in 1985. In 2010, the Commonwealth Parliament passed legislation prohibiting the re-establishment of capital punishment by any state or territory. Australian law prohibits the extradition or deportation of a prisoner to another jurisdiction if they could be sentenced to death for any crime.
Capital punishment in the Republic of Ireland was abolished in statute law in 1990, having been abolished in 1964 for most offences including ordinary murder. The last person to be executed was Michael Manning, hanged for murder in 1954. All subsequent death sentences in the Republic of Ireland, the last handed down in 1985, were commuted by the President, on the advice of the Government, to terms of imprisonment of up to 40 years. The Twenty-first Amendment to the constitution, passed by referendum in 2001, prohibits the reintroduction of the death penalty, even during a state of emergency or war. Capital punishment is also forbidden by several human rights treaties to which the state is a party.
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Sarah-Jane and Anna Flannagan were 19th-century New Zealand murderers. Like Caroline Whitting (1872) and Phoebe Veitch (1883) before them, but unlike Minnie Dean subsequently (1895), the two women were initially sentenced to death for the killing of Anna's 'illegitimate' child and Sarah Jane's grandchild but were subsequently reprieved. In this instance, the intervention of the then-Governor-General of New Zealand William Onslow, 4th Earl of Onslow was required for mitigation of the death penalty to life imprisonment.
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