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Peine forte et dure (Law French for "hard and forceful punishment") was a method of torture formerly used in the common law legal system, in which a defendant who refused to plead ("stood mute") would be subjected to having heavier and heavier stones placed upon their chest until a plea was entered, or death resulted.
Peine forte et dure (Law French for "forceful and hard punishment") was a method of torture formerly used in the common law legal system, in which a defendant who refused to plead ("stood mute") would be subjected to having heavier and heavier stones placed upon his or her chest until a plea was entered, or as the weight of the stones on the chest became too great for the condemned to breathe ...
According to the law at the time, a person who refused to plead could not be tried. To avoid people cheating justice, the legal remedy for refusing to plead was "peine forte et dure". In this process, prisoners were stripped naked and heavy boards were laid on their bodies. Then rocks or boulders were placed on the boards.
Often, some form of a plug, or more simply, a piece of fruit, was placed in the victim's mouth and nose beforehand, so they couldn't get a good breath before being dunked. If the victim confessed they would most likely be killed. This method was widely used during the Spanish Inquisition and in England and France.
As described, peine forte et dure causes death by asphyxia, not by trauma. There may be injury to the chest of the victim, such as rib fractures, but these are not going to be the cause of death. Rather, the victim will die because they are unable to expand the thoracic cavity sufficiently to ventilate, i.e., to move air in and out to oxygenate ...
Though it is a matter of dispute when peine forte et dure (Law French for "hard and forceful punishment") was first introduced, chapter 3 states that those felons standing mute shall be put in prison forte et dure. [5]
The last exception was peine forte et dure, which could be used on someone who refused to plead guilty or not guilty, which was abolished in 1772. [15] Torture was prohibited in Scotland in 1708 after the Acts of Union 1707. These prohibitions applied only in Britain, not in territories of the British Empire unless explicitly introduced there.
The grand jury failed to indict William Proctor, who was re-arrested on new charges. On September 19, 1692, Giles Corey refused to plead at trial, and was killed by peine forte et dure, a form of torture in which the subject is pressed beneath an increasingly heavy load of stones, in an attempt to make him enter a plea. Four pleaded guilty and ...