Outlaw
Encyclopedia
In historical legal systems
Legal history
Legal history or the history of law is the study of how law has evolved and why it changed. Legal history is closely connected to the development of civilizations and is set in the wider context of social history...
, an outlaw is declared as outside the protection of the law. In pre-modern societies, this takes the burden of active prosecution of a criminal from the authorities. Instead, the criminal is withdrawn all legal protection, so that anyone is legally empowered to persecute or kill them. Outlawry
Banditry
Banditry refers to the life and practice of bandits which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as "one who is proscribed or outlawed; hence, a lawless desperate marauder, a brigand: usually applied to members of the organized gangs which infest the mountainous districts of Italy, Sicily, Spain,...
was thus one of the harshest penalties in the legal system, since the outlaw had only himself to protect himself, but it also required no enforcement on the part of the justice system. In early Germanic law
Early Germanic law
Several Latin law codes of the Germanic peoples written in the Early Middle Ages survive, dating to between the 5th and 9th centuries...
, the death penalty is conspicuously absent, and outlawing is the most extreme punishment, presumably amounting to a death sentence in practice.
The concept is known from Roman law, as the status of homo sacer
Homo sacer
Homo sacer is a figure of Roman law: a person who is banned, may be killed by anybody, but may not be sacrificed in a religious ritual....
, and persisted throughout the Middle Ages. It was only in the modern period that the principle of habeas corpus
Habeas corpus
is a writ, or legal action, through which a prisoner can be released from unlawful detention. The remedy can be sought by the prisoner or by another person coming to his aid. Habeas corpus originated in the English legal system, but it is now available in many nations...
was established, requiring that criminals must be judged in person by a court of law before they can legally be punished.
In the common law
Common law
Common law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action...
of England, a "Writ of Outlawry" made the pronouncement Caput gerat lupinum ("Let his be a wolf's head," literally "May he bear a wolfish head") with respect to its subject, using "head" to refer to the entire
Synecdoche
Synecdoche , meaning "simultaneous understanding") is a figure of speech in which a term is used in one of the following ways:* Part of something is used to refer to the whole thing , or...
person (cf. "per capita") and equating that person with a wolf in the eyes of the law: Not only was the subject deprived of all legal rights of the law being outside of the "law", but others could kill him on sight as if he were a wolf or other wild animal.
Ancient Rome
Among other forms of exileExile
Exile means to be away from one's home , while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened with imprisonment or death upon return...
, Roman law
Roman law
Roman law is the legal system of ancient Rome, and the legal developments which occurred before the 7th century AD — when the Roman–Byzantine state adopted Greek as the language of government. The development of Roman law comprises more than a thousand years of jurisprudence — from the Twelve...
included the penalty of interdicere aquae et ignis ("to forbid fire and water"). People so penalized were required to leave Roman territory and forfeit their property. If they returned, they were effectively outlaws; providing them the use of fire or water was illegal, and they could be killed at will without legal penalty.
Interdicere aquae et ignis was traditionally imposed by the tribune of the plebs, and is attested to have been in use during the First Punic War
First Punic War
The First Punic War was the first of three wars fought between Ancient Carthage and the Roman Republic. For 23 years, the two powers struggled for supremacy in the western Mediterranean Sea, primarily on the Mediterranean island of Sicily and its surrounding waters but also to a lesser extent in...
of the third century BCE by Cato the Elder
Cato the Elder
Marcus Porcius Cato was a Roman statesman, commonly referred to as Censorius , Sapiens , Priscus , or Major, Cato the Elder, or Cato the Censor, to distinguish him from his great-grandson, Cato the Younger.He came of an ancient Plebeian family who all were noted for some...
. It was later also applied by many other officials, such as the Senate
Roman Senate
The Senate of the Roman Republic was a political institution in the ancient Roman Republic, however, it was not an elected body, but one whose members were appointed by the consuls, and later by the censors. After a magistrate served his term in office, it usually was followed with automatic...
, magistrates, and Julius Caesar
Julius Caesar
Gaius Julius Caesar was a Roman general and statesman and a distinguished writer of Latin prose. He played a critical role in the gradual transformation of the Roman Republic into the Roman Empire....
as a general
General
A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....
and provincial governor during the Gallic Wars
Gallic Wars
The Gallic Wars were a series of military campaigns waged by the Roman proconsul Julius Caesar against several Gallic tribes. They lasted from 58 BC to 51 BC. The Gallic Wars culminated in the decisive Battle of Alesia in 52 BC, in which a complete Roman victory resulted in the expansion of the...
. It fell out of use during the early Empire.
Principate
The Principate is the first period of the Roman Empire, extending from the beginning of the reign of Caesar Augustus to the Crisis of the Third Century, after which it was replaced with the Dominate. The Principate is characterized by a concerted effort on the part of the Emperors to preserve the...
In the UK
In EnglishEnglish law
English law is the legal system of England and Wales, and is the basis of common law legal systems used in most Commonwealth countries and the United States except Louisiana...
common law
Common law
Common law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action...
, an outlaw was a person who had defied the laws of the realm, by such acts as ignoring a summons
Summons
Legally, a summons is a legal document issued by a court or by an administrative agency of government for various purposes.-Judicial summons:...
to court, or fleeing instead of appearing to plead when charged with a crime
Crime
Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...
. In the earlier law of Anglo-Saxon England, outlawry was also declared when a person committed a homicide
Homicide
Homicide refers to the act of a human killing another human. Murder, for example, is a type of homicide. It can also describe a person who has committed such an act, though this use is rare in modern English...
and could not pay the weregild
Weregild
Weregild was a value placed on every human being and every piece of property in the Salic Code...
, the blood-money, that was due to the victim's kin.
Criminal
The term Outlawry referred to the formal procedure of declaring someone an outlaw, i.e. putting him outside of the sphere of legal protection. In the common lawCommon law
Common law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action...
of England, a judgment of (criminal) outlawry was one of the harshest penalties in the legal system, since the outlaw could not use the legal system to protect them if needed, e.g. from mob justice. To be declared an outlaw was to suffer a form of civil
Civil death
Civil death is a term that refers to the loss of all or almost all civil rights by a person due to a conviction for a felony or due to an act by the government of a country that results in the loss of civil rights...
or social
Social death
Social death is a term used to describe the condition of people not accepted as fully human by wider society. Used by sociologists like Zygmunt Bauman and historians of the holocaust to describe the part played governmental and social segregation in that process...
death. The outlaw was debarred from all civilized society. No one was allowed to give him food, shelter, or any other sort of support – to do so was to commit the crime of aiding and abetting
Aiding and abetting
Criminal=Aiding and abetting is an additional provision in United States criminal law, for situations where it cannot be shown the party personally carried out the criminal offense, but where another person may have carried out the illegal act as an agent of the charged, working together with or...
, and to be in danger of the ban oneself. In effect, (criminal) outlaws were criminals on the run who were "wanted dead or alive".
An outlaw might be killed with impunity; and it was not only lawful but meritorious to kill a thief flying from justice — to do so was not murder
Murder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
. A man who slew a thief was expected to declare the fact without delay, otherwise the dead man’s kindred might clear his name by their oath and require the slayer to pay weregild as for a true man. Because the outlaw had defied civil society, that society was quit of any obligations to the outlaw — outlaws had no civil rights and could not sue in any court on any cause of action, though they were themselves personally liable.
By the rules of common law, a criminal outlaw did not need to be guilty of the crime he was outlawed for. If a man was accused of a crime and, instead of appearing in court and defending himself from accusations, fled from justice, he was committing serious contempt of court which was itself a capital crime; so even if he were innocent of the crime he was originally accused of, he was guilty of evading justice.
In the context of criminal law
Criminal law
Criminal law, is the body of law that relates to crime. It might be defined as the body of rules that defines conduct that is not allowed because it is held to threaten, harm or endanger the safety and welfare of people, and that sets out the punishment to be imposed on people who do not obey...
, outlawry faded not so much by legal changes as by the greater population density of the country, which made it harder for wanted fugitives to evade capture; and by the international adoption of extradition
Extradition
Extradition is the official process whereby one nation or state surrenders a suspected or convicted criminal to another nation or state. Between nation states, extradition is regulated by treaties...
pacts.
The Third Reich made extensive use of the concept. Prior to the Nuremberg Trials
Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....
, the British jurist Lord Chancellor
Lord Chancellor
The Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, or Lord Chancellor, is a senior and important functionary in the government of the United Kingdom. He is the second highest ranking of the Great Officers of State, ranking only after the Lord High Steward. The Lord Chancellor is appointed by the Sovereign...
Lord Simon
John Simon, 1st Viscount Simon
John Allsebrook Simon, 1st Viscount Simon GCSI GCVO OBE PC was a British politician who held senior Cabinet posts from the beginning of the First World War to the end of the Second. He is one of only three people to have served as Home Secretary, Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer,...
attempted to resurrect the concept of outlawry in order to provide for summary executions of captured Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
war criminals. Although Simon's point of view was supported by Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...
, American and Soviet attorneys insisted on a trial, and he was thus overruled.
Civil
There was also civil outlawry. Civil outlawry did not carry capital punishment with it, and it was imposed on defendants who fled or evaded justice when sued for civil actions like debts or torts. The punishments for civil outlawry were nevertheless harsh, including confiscation of chattels (movable property) left behind by the outlaw.In the civil context, outlawry became obsolescent in civil procedure
Civil procedure
Civil procedure is the body of law that sets out the rules and standards that courts follow when adjudicating civil lawsuits...
by reforms that no longer required summoned defendant
Defendant
A defendant or defender is any party who is required to answer the complaint of a plaintiff or pursuer in a civil lawsuit before a court, or any party who has been formally charged or accused of violating a criminal statute...
s to appear and plead. Still, the possibility of being declared an outlaw for derelictions of civil
Civil law (common law)
Civil law, as opposed to criminal law, is the branch of law dealing with disputes between individuals or organizations, in which compensation may be awarded to the victim...
duty continued to exist in English law until 1879 and in Scots law
Scots law
Scots law is the legal system of Scotland. It is considered a hybrid or mixed legal system as it traces its roots to a number of different historical sources. With English law and Northern Irish law it forms the legal system of the United Kingdom; it shares with the two other systems some...
until the late 1940s. Since then, failure to find the defendant and serve process is usually interpreted in favour of the defendant, and harsh penalties for mere nonappearance (merely presumed flight to escape justice) no longer apply.
In other countries
Outlawry also existed in other ancient legal codes, such as the ancient NorseNorsemen
Norsemen is used to refer to the group of people as a whole who spoke what is now called the Old Norse language belonging to the North Germanic branch of Indo-European languages, especially Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, Swedish and Danish in their earlier forms.The meaning of Norseman was "people...
and Icelandic legal code
Icelandic Commonwealth
The Icelandic Commonwealth, Icelandic Free State, or Republic of Iceland was the state existing in Iceland between the establishment of the Althing in 930 and the pledge of fealty to the Norwegian king in 1262...
. These societies did not have any police force or prisons and criminal sentences were therefore restricted to either fines or outlawry.
Outlawing as political weapon
There have been many instances in military and/or political conflicts throughout History whereby one side declares the other as being "illegal", notorious cases being the use of ProscriptionProscription
Proscription is a term used for the public identification and official condemnation of enemies of the state. It is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as a "decree of condemnation to death or banishment" and is a heavily politically charged word, frequently used to refer to state-approved...
in Republican Rome's civil wars. In later times there was the notable case of emperor Napoleon whom the Congress of Vienna
Congress of Vienna
The Congress of Vienna was a conference of ambassadors of European states chaired by Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, and held in Vienna from September, 1814 to June, 1815. The objective of the Congress was to settle the many issues arising from the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic Wars,...
, in 13 March 1815, declared to be "outside the law".
In modern times, the government of the First Spanish Republic
First Spanish Republic
The First Spanish Republic was the political regime that existed in Spain between the parliamentary proclamation on 11 February 1873 and 29 December 1874 when General Arsenio Martínez-Campos's pronunciamento marked the beginning of the Bourbon Restoration in Spain...
, unable to reduce the Cantonalist
Cantonalism
Cantonalism, mainly prevalent in late 19th century and early 20th century Spain, is an insurrectionary movement which aims to divide the nation state into almost independent cantons....
rebellion centered in Cartagena, Spain
Cartagena, Spain
Cartagena is a Spanish city and a major naval station located in the Region of Murcia, by the Mediterranean coast, south-eastern Spain. As of January 2011, it has a population of 218,210 inhabitants being the Region’s second largest municipality and the country’s 6th non-Province capital...
, declared the Cartagena fleet to be "piratic", which allowed any nation to prey on it.
Taking the opposite road, some outlaws became political leaders, such as Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
's Kassa Hailu who became Emperor Tewodros II of Ethiopia
Tewodros II of Ethiopia
Tewodros II was the Emperor of Ethiopia from 1855 until his death....
.
Popular usage
Though the judgment of outlawry is now obsolete (even though it inspired the pro forma Outlawries BillOutlawries Bill
A Bill for the more effectual preventing clandestine Outlawries, usually referred as Outlawries Bill, is customarily the first bill on the agenda of the United Kingdom's House of Commons at the start of each session of Parliament.-Ceremonial purpose:...
which is still to this day introduced in the British House of Commons
British House of Commons
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...
during the State Opening of Parliament
State Opening of Parliament
In the United Kingdom, the State Opening of Parliament is an annual event that marks the commencement of a session of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It is held in the House of Lords Chamber, usually in November or December or, in a general election year, when the new Parliament first assembles...
), romanticised outlaws became stock character
Stock character
A Stock character is a fictional character based on a common literary or social stereotype. Stock characters rely heavily on cultural types or names for their personality, manner of speech, and other characteristics. In their most general form, stock characters are related to literary archetypes,...
s in several fictional settings. This was particularly so in the United States, where outlaws were popular subjects of newspaper coverage and stories in the 19th century, and 20th century fiction and Western movies. Thus, "outlaw" is still commonly used to mean those violating the law or, by extension, those living that lifestyle, whether actual criminals evading the law or those merely opposed to "law-and-order" notions of conformity and authority (such as the "outlaw country
Outlaw country
Outlaw country is a subgenre of country music, most popular during the late 1960s and the 1970s , sometimes referred to as the outlaw movement or simply outlaw music...
" music movement in the 1970s).
See also
- AbrekAbrekAbrek is a North Caucasian term. It originates from abræg, the Ossetian for a robber. Once it was used for a person who vowed to avoid any pleasures and to be fearless in fight. A vow could last for five years...
- American Old WestAmerican Old WestThe American Old West, or the Wild West, comprises the history, geography, people, lore, and cultural expression of life in the Western United States, most often referring to the latter half of the 19th century, between the American Civil War and the end of the century...
- BanditryBanditryBanditry refers to the life and practice of bandits which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as "one who is proscribed or outlawed; hence, a lawless desperate marauder, a brigand: usually applied to members of the organized gangs which infest the mountainous districts of Italy, Sicily, Spain,...
- BrigandageBrigandageBrigandage refers to the life and practice of brigands: highway robbery and plunder, and a brigand is a person who usually lives in a gang and lives by pillage and robbery....
- BuccaneerBuccaneerThe buccaneers were privateers who attacked Spanish shipping in the Caribbean Sea during the late 17th century.The term buccaneer is now used generally as a synonym for pirate...
- BushrangerBushrangerBushrangers, or bush rangers, originally referred to runaway convicts in the early years of the British settlement of Australia who had the survival skills necessary to use the Australian bush as a refuge to hide from the authorities...
- CangaçoCangaçoCangaço is the name given to a form of "social banditry" in the Northeast of Brazil in late 19th and early 20th centuries. This region of Brazil is known for its aridness and hardships, and in a form of reaction against the domination of the land owners and the government, many men and women...
- Dacoit
- Famous outlawsOutlaw (stock character)Though the judgment of outlawry is obsolete, romanticised outlaws became stock characters in several fictional settings.This was particularly so in the United States, where outlaws were popular subjects of newspaper coverage and stories in the 19th century, and 20th century fiction and Western...
- GangsterGangsterA gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Some gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from mob and the suffix -ster....
- HajdukHajdukHajduk is a term most commonly referring to outlaws, highwaymen or freedom fighters in the Balkans, Central- and Eastern Europe....
- HighwaymanHighwaymanA highwayman was a thief and brigand who preyed on travellers. This type of outlaw, usually, travelled and robbed by horse, as compared to a footpad who traveled and robbed on foot. Mounted robbers were widely considered to be socially superior to footpads...
- HonghuziHonghuziHonghuzi were armed robbers, bandits in the areas of the eastern Russia-China borderland: Southeastern Siberia, Russian Far East, and Northeast China . the word has been variously transliterated as hong huzi, hong hu zi, hunghutze, hun-hutze, etc...
("red beards") - KlephtKlephtKlephts were self-appointed armatoloi, anti-Ottoman insurgents, and warlike mountain-folk who lived in the countryside when Greece was a part of the Ottoman Empire...
- List of American Old West outlaws
- Outlaw motorcycle clubOutlaw motorcycle clubAn outlaw motorcycle club is a type of motorcycle club that is part of a subculture with roots in the post-World War II USA, centered on cruiser motorcycles, particularly Harley-Davidsons and choppers, and a set of ideals celebrating freedom, nonconformity to mainstream culture, and loyalty to the...
- Pirate
- Robber baronRobber baronA robber baron or robber knight was an unscrupulous and despotic nobility of the medieval period in Europe, for example, Berlichingen. It has slightly different meanings in different countries. In modern US parlance, the term is also used to describe unscrupulous industrialists...
- ShanlinShanlinThe term shanlin 山林 means literally "mountain and forest" in Chinese and was frequently used to describe bandits in Manchuria from the time of the Qing dynasty, because they knew the local wooded and mountainous terrain very well. Most operated in a fairly small district and took pains to maintain...
- ShiftaShiftaShifta is term used in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia for rebel, outlaw, or bandit. The word is derived from shúfto. Historically, shifta served as local militia in the lawless rural mountainous regions on the Horn of Africa...
- Social banditsSocial banditsSocial bandit or social crime is a term invented by the historian Eric Hobsbawm in his 1959 book Primitive Rebels, a study of popular forms of resistance that also incorporate behavior characterized by law as illegal. He further expanded the field in the 1969 study Bandits...
, a term invented by Eric HobsbawmEric HobsbawmEric John Ernest Hobsbawm , CH, FBA, is a British Marxist historian, public intellectual, and author... - Thug
- ThuggeeThuggeeThuggee is the term for a particular kind of murder and robbery of travellers in South Asia and particularly in India.They are sometimes called Phansigar i.e...
cult - UntouchabilityUntouchabilityUntouchability is the social practice of ostracizing a minority group by segregating them from the mainstream by social custom or legal mandate. The excluded group could be one that did not accept the norms of the excluding group and historically included foreigners, nomadic tribes, law-breakers...
- VigilanteVigilanteA vigilante is a private individual who legally or illegally punishes an alleged lawbreaker, or participates in a group which metes out extralegal punishment to an alleged lawbreaker....
- Wolf's HeadWolf's Head (secret society)Wolf's Head Society is an undergraduate senior or secret society at Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA. Membership is recomposed annually of fifteen or sixteen Yale University students, typically juniors from the college...
, a Yale UniversityYale UniversityYale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
senior society named for the legal maxim associated with outlawry