A friend told me today that in England, in long-ago days (1600’s? 1700’s?) that if someone raised an accusation against someone of either piracy or of sodomy, that was all it took. The suspect was hauled off and hanged, with no waste of time for a trial.
This doesn’t sound right to me! I know that court procedures were a lot sketchier in those days than today. (The courtroom scene in the book Captain Blood is, perhaps, an example of how due process could be abridged to the point of virtual non-existence.) But was it really the case? “He’s a pirate!” Or “Those two were engaged in unnatural acts of forbidden lust!” And off they go to the gallows with never a trial?
NO Freeman shall be taken or imprisoned, or be disseised of his Freehold, or Liberties, or free Customs, or be outlawed, or exiled, or any other wise destroyed; nor will We not pass upon him, nor condemn him, but by lawful judgment of his Peers, or by the Law of the land. We will sell to no man, we will not deny or defer to any man either Justice or Right.