Punishment
The court was expressly limited to two forms of punishment. These were death, in capital cases, or flogging, in non-capital cases. Fines or imprisonment were not an option as there were no local gaols nor would prisoners have the money to pay a fine in the early days of the settlement. However, Phillip frequently sent prisoners for punishment to the islands in Sydney Harbour, and then subsequently to Norfolk Island when that penal colony was established. The Governor's warrant was a necessary preliminary to an execution; but he was empowered by his commission to grant a pardon in any case which was not treason or murder. He could also reprieve a prisoner until final instructions were received from England.
Read more about this topic: Court Of Criminal Jurisdiction
Famous quotes containing the word punishment:
“All pain is a punishment, and every punishment is inflicted for love as much as for justice.”
—Joseph De Maistre (1753–1821)
“One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted; and a community is infinitely more brutalised by the habitual employment of punishment than it is by the occasional occurrence of crime.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime, and the punishment of his guilt.”
—John Philpot Curran (1750–1817)