FINE, Henry Burchard, American mathe matician: b. Chambersburg, Pa., 14 Sept. 1858. He was graduated at Princeton in 1880 and re ceived the degree of Ph.D. at the University of Leipzig in 1885. Since 1881 he has been connected with the faculty of tnathematics of Princeton, successively as tutor 1881-84, assistant professor 1885-90, Dod professor of mathematics since 1891, dean of the faculty 1903-13, and dean of the department of science since 1911. He was president of the American Mathematical So ciety in 1911-12. He published 'Euclid's Ele ments> (1891) ; 'Number System of Algebra' (2d ed., 1903); 'College Algebra' (1904) ; 'Ordinate Geometry,' in collaboration with H. D. Thompson (1909).
FINE (in criminal law). In modern usage, a pecuniary penalty imposed by a legal tribunal on an offender as a punishment. The term originated in England about the 13th century, when criminals were allowed to shorten the terms of their imprisonment by paying a des ignated sum of money into court. From early days in England until recently it had been the usual practice, under the common-law rules, when a prisoner was sentenced to pay a fine, to include in the judgment an order that he be committed to jail until the fine be paid. This practice, either by the rules of the common law or by statutes, subject to constitutional limita tions, has been continued in the United States. The maximum amount of fines for specific of fenses is usually fixed by statute, but within certain limits it is often discretionary. Fre quently a fine is an alternate to a term of im prisonment, at the discretion of the presiding judge. On failure to pay the fine, the prisoner is ordinarily, in most of the jurisdictions in the United States, committed to the penitentiary or the county jail. After payment of the fine, the prisoner is entitled to an immediate discharge. Excessive fines are prohibited by the Eighth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, and whether a fine is excessive or not is a question of law for the court to determine. Various State statutes fixing heavy fines for different offenses have been declared void by the Federal courts of the United States, from time to time, on the ground that such statutes came within the above-named constitutional prohibition. In some States, by statute or by common law, a fine may be enforced by execution against the property of the defendant, but in other States a fine can be enforced only by imprisonment. At common law and in the absence of statutory prohibition, a commitment of an offender until the fine be paid may be for an indefinite period if the fine be not paid, and this has been held not to be in violation of a constitutional pro vision against indefinite imprisonment. In some States offenders who have been convicted and fined may be compelled to pay it by working on a public improvement or by being hired out to private individuals, on the basis usually of credit at a certain rate per day.
FINE (probably from Latin finis, ((end"), in English law, formerly signified ((an income or a sum of money paid at the entrance of a tenant into his land; a sum paid for the renewal of a lease; and an assurance by matter of record founded on a supposed previously existing right.
In every fine which was the compromise of a fictitious suit, and resemble the transaciio of the Romans, there was a suit supposed, in which the person who was to recover the thing was called the plaintiff conusee or recognizee, and the person who parted with the thing the de forceant, conusor or recognizor. Besides the specific uses above referred to, fine has the sig nification in general law, in America as well as in Europe, of a pecuniary penalty exacted either in punishment of, or in compensation for, an offense, whether committed against an individ ual, in contravention of the laws of the com munity, or against the community itself. Fines in this sense are of very ancient origin, and have been sanctioned by the practice of all na tions, ancient and modern, from the lowest to the highest degree of civilization. In the earlier stages of society fines form, for an obvious rea son, one of the principal modes of punishment. Prisons and artificial it impose a bur den on society which t isnot yet able to bear, and demand an organization which it has not reached. There remain only firxts, corporal chastisements and death. The last is suited only for the gravest offenses; the second is rendered impracticable in the case of many of fenses by the dignity of the offenders; the first in many others by their impecuniosity.
In the most civilized nations of antiquity, Greece and Rome, fines were numerous and fre quently excessive. In the early period fines were imposed in cattle, the highest amount of the mulcts or damnum being 2 oxen and 30 sheep. The ancient Germans, being a people who highly valued freedom, admitted hardly any punishments but fines, and their influence extended the use of this penalty among other European nations. A murder was commuted by a payment to the family of the deceased. In the ancient French law fines were divided into two classes, according as they were fixed by law or left to the discretion. This distinc tion has been abolished since the Revolution by the fixing of maximum and minimum limits for all fines. In England the common law recog nizes fines, but does not determine their amount, and this is usually fixed in particular statutes, with a discretion to the judge. The rule in Eng land from an early period, and which was in corporated in Magna Charta, was that no man should be amerced beyond his circumstances and personal estate, leaving to the landowner his land, to the merchant his stock and to the husbandman his wainage or team and instru ments of husbandry.
The fine, as distinct from an amercement assessed by a jury, originated in English law as a means of purchasing freedom from a sentence of imprisonment. The alternative of fine or imprisonment is still in common use for the punishment of misdemeanors and imprisonment for a relatively brief period is often adjudged for the non-payment of a fine.