For the Legal History Geeks*

Lately, at work, I've been working my way through the briefs in an upcoming Supreme Court case, Panetti v. Quarterman, which presents an interesting death penalty issue. The defendant, Panetti, is absolutely completely 100% batshit loony insane. Only in Texas could he be convicted and sentenced to death. The issue now is whether he's so insane so as to preclude his execution. To put it briefly, while Panetti knows why the state seeks to execute him (murder), he believes it's all a cover for the state's desire to silence his preaching of the Gospel. If he knows what the state says its motivation is, but disbelieves it, does it matter?

Anyway, one of the amicus briefs is from a collection of legal historians and details the state of the common law on execution of the insane at the time the Bill of Rights was ratified. Part of their argument utilizes information about pre-1789 trials in England. A resource they cite is The Proceedings of the Old Bailey. The Old Bailey is the main criminal court in London. The website is:

A fully searchable online edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published, containing accounts of over 100,000 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court.

The info dates from 1673 to 1834 and looks to be a real treasure trove of interesting stuff.

* I don't say that to be derogatory - I'm a big legal history geek myself.