APPROVER. By the old English law, when a person who had been ar rested, imprisoned, and indicted for trea son or felony, confessed the crime charged in the indictment, and was admitted by the court to reveal on oath the accom plices of his guilt, he was called an ap prover.
The judge or court might in their dis cretion give judgment and award execu tion upon the party confessing, or admit him to be an approver. In the latter case a coroner was directed to receive and record the particulars of the ap prover's disclosure, which was called ex appeal, and process was thereupon issued to apprehend and try the appellees, that is, the persons whom the approver had named as the partners of his crime.
As the approver, in revealing his 1.e complices, rendered himself liable to the punishment due to the crime which he had confessed, and was only respited at the discretion of the court, it was con sidered that an accusation, made under such circumstances, was entitled to pear liar credit, and the accomplices wero therefore put upon their trial without the intervention of a grand jury.
Here, however, as in other appeals [APPEAL], the parties accused by the approver were allowed to choose the mode of trial, and the approver might be compelled to fight each of his accom plices in succession. But, unlike an ap
peal by an innocent person, the prosecu tion at the suit of an approver might be defeated and discharged by a pardon granted by the king either to the ap prover or to the appellee.
If the ap rover failed to make good his appeal, ju.... ent of death was given against him. If he succeeded in convict ing the appellee, he was entitled to a small daily allowance from the time of being admitted approver, and to a pardon from the king.
The appeal by approvers had become obsolete before the abolition of it by par liament; and the present practice is to prefer a bill of indictment against all par ties implicated in the charge, except the approver, and to permit the criminal who confesses his guilt to give evidence against his companions before the grand jury. If upon the trial the demeanour and testi mony of the accomplice are satisfactory to the court, he is recommended to the mercy of the crown. (See 2 Hawk., Crown Law, ch. 24.)