Posted on 11/27/2012 7:23:24 AM PST by marktwain
” Malicious prosecution needs to carry a financial penalty. Either via fines or incarceration...”
YEP
Sorry about that. You are correct; I'm not yet used to the 5-inch screen and tiny little keyboard.
At a minimum.
Either via fines or incarceration...
Except for egregious cases and repeat offenders. You familiar with Benjamin Cleveland?
In 1778 Ben was made colonel of the militia. Despite his reputation for brutal justice (or perhaps because of it!), he was appointed justice of the Wilkes County court and placed at the head of the Commission of Justices. Regarded as one of the most popular leaders of the mountain section of the state, Ben was easily elected to the state's House of Commons during this year.
Even while Ben was busy with these affairs of county and state, he was active in sending scouting parties into certain mountain regions to break up Tory bands infesting the frontier. One detachment of Cleveland's Bulldogs caught a Tory desperado named Zachariah Wells and brought him to Hughes Bottoms, about a mile from Round About. Here thirteen-year-old James Gwyn and a colored boy were at work in a cornfield when Ben joined those who had taken Wells prisoner. The band of freedom fighters included Ben's two sons, his brother Robert, and Lieutenant Elisha Reynolds.
Needing something to hang Wells with, Ben borrowed the plow lines from James Gwyn's horse. James, innocent of the ways of war, was shocked at so summary an execution and begged his neighbor not to hang the poor fellow who looked so pitiful and was suffering from a former wound.
"Jimmie, my son," Ben explained gently, "he is a bad man. We must hang all such [damned men]." Captain Robert Cleveland was cursing "at a vigorous rate" as he prepared the wincing, squirming prisoner for execution. Ben was not unaffected by the boy's naive pleas, and tears flowed down his cheeks as he adjusted the rope around the neck of Zachariah Wells. The big-hearted colonel regretted the necessity of hanging the trembling culprit, especially in front of young Jimmie, but he also knew that the lives of the Yadkin River patriots would be much safer and they would all sleep more peacefully when the country was rid of such vile desperadoes. Wells soon dangled from a convenient tree, and his body was buried in the sand and loam on the bank of the Yadkin.
Wherever Ben travled, he remained vigilant for any glimmer of Tory influence. ... .
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