Corruption of blood is one of the consequences of attainder. The descendants of an attainted person could not inherit either from the attainted criminal (whose property had been forfeited on conviction) or from their other relatives through the criminal. For example, if a son is executed for a crime leaving innocent grandsons as orphans, and the innocent grandfather has other children besides the criminal, the property of the criminal is forfeited to the crown. But when the grandfather dies, the property of the grandfather will not be seized by the Crown or pass to the grandchildren: it passes to the other children of the grandfather.
While the United States Constitution (in article III, section 3) prohibits corruption of blood, it is nonetheless possible in many states for a crime to affect the inheritance rights of innocent relatives due to the slayer rule.
In England and Wales, where a judge considers it just, the Forfeiture Act 1982 applies in murder and in some forms of manslaughter, to simplify the common law rule. The rule applied to felony before the Forfeiture Act 1870.
Read more about this topic: Attainder
Famous quotes containing the words corruption of, corruption and/or blood:
“All religions have based morality on obedience, that is to say, on voluntary slavery. That is why they have always been more pernicious than any political organisation. For the latter makes use of violence, the former—of the corruption of the will.”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)
“The time to guard against corruption and tyranny, is before they shall have gotten hold on us. It is better to keep the wolf out of the fold, than to trust to drawing his teeth and talons after he shall have entered.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“To-day there is hardly a woman of intelligence in all America ... who is not definitely and actively concerned in some social interest, who does not recognize some duty besides those incident to her own blood relationship.”
—Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860–1935)