Page:William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (4th ed, 1770, vol IV).djvu/396

384 PUBLIC BOOK IV. fition or presence of either A, or B: in this cafe all proceedings, trials, convr';ions, and judgments are void for want of a pro- per authority in the commiffioners, and may be falfified upon bare infpection without the trouble of a writ of error a; it being a high mifdemefnor in the judges fo proceeding, and little (if any thing) fhort of murder in them all, in cafe the perfon fo attainted be executed and fuffer death. So likewife if a man purchafes land of another; and afterwards the vendor is, either by outlawry, or his own confeffion, convicted and attainted of treafon er felony previous to the fale or alienation; whereby fuch land becomes liable to forfeiture or efcheat: now, upon any trial, the purchafor is at liberty, without bringing any writ of error, to falfify not only the time of the felony or treafon fup- pofed, but the very point of the felony or treafon itfelf; and is not concluded by the confefiion or the outlawry of the vendor; though the vendor himfelf is concluded, and not fuffered now to deny the fact, which he has by confeffion or flight acknow- leged. But if fuch attainder of the vendor was by verdict, on the oath of his peers, the alienee cannot be received to falfify or contradict the faft of the crime committed; though he is at li- berty to prove a miftake in time, or that the offence was com- mitted after the alienation, and not before b.

SECONDLY, a judgment maybe reverfed, by writ of error: which lies from all inferior criminal jurifdidtions to the court of king's bench, and from the king's bench to the houfe of peers; and may be brought for notorious miftakes in the judgment or other parts of the record: as where a man is found guilty of perjury and receives the judgment of felony, or for other lefs palpable errors; fuch as any irregularity, omiffion, or want of form in the procefs of outlawry, or proclamations; the want of a proper addition to the defendant's name, according to the fta- tute of additions; for not properly naming the fheriff or other officer of the court, or not duly defcribing where his county court was held; for laying an offence, committed in the time of

Hawk. P.C. 459. 3 lnt. 231. 1 Hal, P.C. 361. the