University of Virginia Library

1985. DEATH PENALTY, Crimes Punishable by.—[continued].

No crime shall be henceforth
punished by the deprivation of life or
limb, except those hereinafter ordained to be
so punished. [118]
Crimes Bill. Washington ed. i, 148. Ford ed., ii, 205.
(1779)

 
[118]

Those crimes, so ordained, were treason and
murder. When Jefferson made this humane proposition,
the penal code of England comprehended
more than two hundred offences, besides treason and
murder, punishable by hanging.—Editor.