An amercement is a pecuniary punish ment which follows upon every present ment of a default or of any offence com mitted out of court by private persons. Amercements are to be mitigated in open court by affeerers (afferratores, from af ferrare or afForare, qbeerer, to tax, or fix a price, hence the term afferege, used in the old French law to denote the judicial fixing of a price upon property to be sold). The affeerers by their oaths affirm the reasonableness of the sum at which they have assessed the amercement. This course is confirmed by Magna Charta, which directs that amercements shall be assessed by the peers of the offender, i.e. the pares curim, or suitors of the same court. The amercements, being affeered, are estreated (extracted) from the court roll by the steward, and levied by the bailiff under a special warrant from the lord or steward for that purpose, by dis tress and sale of the goods of the party, which may be taken at any place within the district; or the lord may maintain an action of debt for such amercement. For a nuisance, the jury may amerce the of fender, and at the same time order that he be distraiued to amend it.
The steward of a leet is a judge of re cord, and may take recoguizances of the peace ; and he may impose u fine for a contempt or other offence committed in court, as where a party obstructs the jury in the execution of their duties, or by public officers in the discharge of their duties out of court. The amount of the fine is at once fixed by the steward, and therefore, though sometimes loosely called an amercement, it is nut to be af feered. When a suitor present in court refuses to be sworn, it is a contempt for which a reasonable fine may be imposed ; so if the jury, or any of them, refuse to make a presentment, or depart without making it, or make it before all are agreed. But the fine must be set upon each person individually. For the fine so imposed the lord may distrain or bring an action of debt. In all matters within the cognizance of a court-leet the lord or steward has the same power as the judges in the superior courts. He has indeed no power to award imprisonment as a punishment for offences presented in the feet, such offences being the subject of amercement only ; but he may imprison persons indicted or accused of felony be fore him, and persons guilty of a con tempt in face of the court.
If a nuisance within the jurisdiction of a leet be not presented at the court-leet, the sheriff cannot inquire of it iu his tourn, for that which is within the pre cinct of the leet is exempt from the juris diction of the tourn ; which has merely the same jurisdiction as private leets in such parts of the hundred as are not in cluded within any private leet.
Of common right the constable is to be chosen by the jury in the leet ; and if the party chosen be present, he ought to take the oath in the leet ; if absent, before jus tices of the peace. If he refuse to accept the office, or to be sworn, the steward may fine him. If the party chosen be absent and refuses, the jury may present his refusal at the next court, and then he is amerced. But a person chosen con stable in his absence ought to have no tice of his election. A mandamus lies to the steward of a leet to swear in a con stable chosen by the jury. By 13 & 14 Car. II. cap. 12, when a constable dies or goes out of the parish, any two jus tices may make and swear a new one until the lord shall hold a court-leet ; and if any officer continue above a year in his office, the justices in their quarter sessions may discharge him, and put another in his place until the lord shall hold a court. But the justices at sessions
cannot discharge a constable appointed at the feet; and though they can appoint constables until the lord shell hold a court, they cannot appoint for a year, oi till others be chosen. A person choser constable who is deficient in honesty, knowledge, or ability, may be discharged by the leet or by the Court of King'E Bench as unfit. The steward may set a reasonable fine on a constable or tithing. man who refuses to make presentments.
Though the leet has long ceased to be the principal and ordinary court of crimi nal jurisdiction, its power has been en larged by several statutes, which give it cognizances over offences newly created, and it does not appear to have been at any time directly abridged by legislative interference. The business of the court has chiefly been affected by the creation of concurrent jurisdictions, particularly that of justices of the peace [JUSTICES OF THE PEACE], who have cognizance of the same matters, as well as of many others over which the court-leet has no jurisdic tion. Justices of the peace are always accessible, whereas the court-leet is open only at distant intervals, and for a short period, unless it be continued by adjourn ment, which can only take place for the despatch of existing business. Another cause of the declension of these tribunals is that except in a very few cases the ju risdiction of the leet is confined to of fences punishable at common law. In statutes which provide for the repression of new offences, the leet is commonly passed over in favour of justices of the peace. Blackstone reckons " the almost entire disuse and contempt of the court leet and sheriff's tourn, the king's ancient courts of common law formerly much revered and respected, among the miss chievous effects of the change in the ad ministration of justice by summary pro ceedings before justices of the peace." It was not however left to the learned com mentator to make this discovery. In the course of the very reign which witnessed the introduction of the modern system of justices of the peace, we find the Com mons remonstrating against the violation of the Saxon principle of self-govern ment and domestic administration of jus tice, resulting from the encroachments made upon the ancient jurisdiction of the leet by giving to the new tribunal of the justices of the peace a concurrent juris diction in matters usually brought before the court-leet, and an exclusive jurisdiction in other important matters In the last year of Edward III. (1377), the Commons by their petition in parlia ment prayed the king that no justice of the peace should inquire of anything cog nizable in the courts of lords who had view of frankpledge, or of anything cog. nizable in any city or borough within their district, and should attend only to the keeping of the peace and the enforc ing of the statute of labourers. To this petition the king returned the following unsatisfactory answer :—" The statutes heretofore made cannot be kept if the pe tition be granted." At this time, and until the passing of 27 Hen. VIII. c. 24, offences in Teets were alleged to be against the lord's peace, not the king's.