The Criminality of Women in Eighteenth-Century England

Scottish Women and the Hangman’s Noose

“…70 Beattie argued that when women did engage in robberies it was often with male accomplices, for whom they acted as decoys and for this reason there may have been numerous women never taken or prosecuted for their part in the crime. 71 In Isabella's case it was her role as the decoy, and apparent deviser of the robbery, that the presiding judge found to be of deepest concern and arguably sealed her fate and prevented her from receiving the Royal mercy. An article in the Aberdeen Journal lamented that it had been "necessary to inflict the punishment of death on a woman" but added that it was fortunately a rare occurrence.…”

Women, Violence and Urban Justice in Holland c. 1600-1838

“…207-216, here 209 Beattie (1975Beattie ( , p. 81, 1986 ; Shoemaker (1991, pp. 208-209) ; Castan (1980) ;Farge (1986) ; Hufton (1974, pp.…”

Manifest MadnessMental Incapacity in the Criminal Law

“…22 Robinson does not see the distinction between circumstances and characteristics as relevant, arguing that, 'essentially', any claim of 21 Structure and Function in Criminal Law 83. Indeed,for Robinson,'[j]ustifications, excuses, and non-exculpatory defences each represent a different kind of special condition' (14).…”

“…The term non compos mentis was used as a generic term to cover all persons of unsound mind, including 'idiots' and 'lunatics': see F Woodbridge 'Some Unusual Aspects of Mental Irresponsibility in the Criminal Law ' (1939) young children and a rebuttable presumption of doli incapax for older children. 14 The idea that very young children should not be subject to criminal sanction seems to have been shared by a number of commentators, but there was variation in thinking about the age from which criminal sanction might be imposed. 15 Specification of a minimum age of criminal responsibility-cum-liability (then the two as yet unseparated) in legal treatises took on greater significance in the seventeenth century, when the system of registering births made it possible to be precise about an individual's age.…”