JB/141/146/003

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Punishment in alienam personam - Incompetency

occasion the perjur'd witness can not be repelled Incompetency
there can be no ground for repelling the perjur'd witness
without supposing peremptorily attributing to another man
who stands in the light of whose character stands unimpeached an offence a crime of a similar
complexion: a supposition which no rule either
of Law or reason seems to warrant.

I can not help thinking that these rules of peremptory The opposite notion
comesproceeds from the looking
only to the
one side
incomptency would never have been laid down
had those who first started them gone deliberately
and circumspectly to work and carefully examined
the consequences on both sides of the question.
The evil consequences of the rule they seemed
scarcely to have cast their eyes on. They seem
to have gone to work as if they had thought thatwitnesses enough
in every case to pick and choose out of: in which
supposition they did very well to pick outcertainly they would do well to discard
the worst to pick out and retain none but the best and
such as should beas Lawyers say more exceptione majores,
proof against all exception I[+] They seem scarcelyIt is a truth [+] All this was mighty
well provided there
was no danger on
the other side. But
the danger on the other
side is terrible.
howeverto have cast which I can scarce help looking
upon as very obvious, and certainly it is an important
one, that to mark any man out as disabled
from witnessing at all events, is to grant InconvenienceDanger refuting
from the peremptory
rejection
of Evidence
all men a license to all persons whatever to practise uponto do to him
him and before him all manner of mishief whatsoever
Now as to what may be done to him, that
indeed may be taken as so much punishment of the
proper kind: though it would be strange loose
and inconsiderate method of laying a man under
prosciption. [a] But as to mischief that may be donebefore before to

NOTE

[a] It would be worse in some respects than Forfeiture of Reputation.

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Identifier: | JB/141/146/003 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 141.
Date_1		Marginal Summary Numbering	not numbered
Box	141	Main Headings	rationale of punishment
Folio number	146	Info in main headings field	punishment in alienam personam
Image	003	Titles	incompetency
Category	text sheet	Number of Pages	4
Recto/Verso	recto	Page Numbering	f55 / f56 / f57 / f58
Penner	jeremy bentham	Watermarks	[[watermarks::l v g propatria [britannia motif]]]
Marginals	jeremy bentham	Paper Producer	caroline vernon
Corrections		Paper Produced in Year
Notes public		ID Number	48363
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