Witches and the pursuit of them were common in early modern Europe and the Americas. While witches are still prevalent in our culture today, they are often seen as a source of entertainment in movies, children's literature, and during Halloween celebrations. A timely topic for October is the historical relationship between witch trials and the law.
Witchcraft Acts
In the 1500s and 1600s, various laws were established across England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland to control magic and witchcraft. Among these, England's three primary witchcraft acts had the most impact on additional regulations and history.
The Witchcraft Act of 1542 (33 Hen. VIII c. 8) was the first to define witchcraft and to criminalize it as a felony punishable by death without clergy or sanctuary. The Act was repealed after the death of Henry VIII in 1547 (1 Edw. VI, c12) and was not replaced until five years into Elizabeth I's reign.
In 1562, an Act Against Conjurations, Enchantments and Witchcrafts (5 Eliz. 1. c. 16) reclassified witchcraft as a felony and shifted trials from church settings to secular courts. It also created penalties for first and second offenses that were less severe than death.
In 1604, The Witchcraft Act, officially titled "An Act Against Conjuration, Witchcraft, and Dealing with Evil and Wicked Spirits" (2 Jas. I c. 12), expanded the Act of 1562 by increasing the scope of crimes and expanding the death penalty punishment.
Witch Trials
Most of what we know about England’s historic witch trials comes from records of the assize courts. The Assizes, or Courts of Assize, served as the foundation for civil and felony criminal cases in English counties until 1971.
The book Witch Hunting and Witch Trials: The Indictments for Witchcraft from the Records of 1373 Assizes Held for the Home Circuit, 1559-1736 A.D., offers legal insight and a general historical examination of this time period. Some noteworthy sections include the names of convicted witches, jury instructions, jail rolls, and charging details by date within each monarch's reign.
The book is part of the Notable Trials Collection at the State of Oregon Law Library. This collection is not limited to European trials; it also features notable American cases. Among the collection is The American State Trials, a 17-volume set that includes The Trials of Bridget Bishop and George Burroughs. Bishop was the first person sentenced to death during the Salem Witch Trials in colonial Massachusetts, while Burroughs was the only Puritan minister to be executed.
Trials Collection
The law library's Notable Trials Collection includes significant historical trials from Britain and France, the Nuremberg war crime tribunals, and important American trials spanning from the colonial period to the 1980s. This collection addresses a wide range of topics, including treason, sedition, land use disputes, murder and assassination, court-martials, Cold War espionage, art and obscenity, as well as both judicial and presidential impeachments.
August is National Make-A-Will Month, a yearly reminder about the benefits of creating or updating a will. While end-of-life issues may not be everyone's favorite topic, having a plan can help avoid family disputes and costly court proceedings. The State of Oregon Law Library has several resources to help.
What is a will?
A will is a legal document that determines how your assets are divided upon death and who becomes the caretaker of any minor children. It also allows you to establish a personal representative or executor to carry out your wishes.
What happens if you die without a will?
You are not legally required to draft a will. If you die without a valid will, it is called dying intestate. When this happens, state law and the court determine how your assets get distributed. Assets go to your closest relatives first, as defined by Oregon law, regardless of your relationship with them.
Who can create a will?
In Oregon, any person who is 18 or older and of sound mind may make a will. (ORS 112.225)
Where do you start?
The Legal Information Reference Center is a great starting point. This database contains reference books, legal guides, and forms written in plain language. Look for The Quick and Legal Will Book for instructions on drafting a basic will. The Wills & Estate Planning category lists additional end-of-life planning tools. Both are available online with a State of Oregon Law Library Account. Oregon residents can sign up for a free account online.
The Oregon Barbooks are written by Oregon attorneys and published by the Oregon State Bar. Administering Trusts in Oregon and Administering Estates in Oregon are two books that can assist in your life planning. Available in print and online with a digital token.
When should you update and/or review your will?
It's a good idea to review your will every five years or whenever there is a significant change in your life. Examples of changes include:
Other estate and planning tools
An estate plan is a more comprehensive plan that can be used during life and after death. More specifically, an estate plan often includes a will, trusts, a health directive, and various types of powers of attorney.
Using a lawyer
A lawyer can give legal advice on drafting a will and developing an estate plan. Search for Wills or Estate Planning in the legal directories on SOLL's resource page.
The State of Oregon Law Library (SOLL) is thrilled to announce that we are celebrating our 50th anniversary of providing federal government documents to the public!
The Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) was created to make sure people have access to government information at the local level. Under Title 44 of the United States Code, the public has free access to government documents in designated depository libraries. SOLL officially joined the FDLP program in February 1974.
There are two types of depositories in the FDLP: regional and selective depositories. Regional depositories receive copies of all federal government documents. In Oregon, our regional depository is the State Library of Oregon.
SOLL is a selective federal depository library. That means we choose which federal publications to add to our collection.
Here are some examples of government documents available at the law library:
Visit the State of Oregon Law Library at 1163 State St., Salem, Oregon or online at https://oregon.gov/soll/
Prior to the Depression Era, judicial department elections were partisan, and candidates for judicial office -- Supreme Court, circuit court, and district court -- were listed on the ballot by their political party.1 Furthermore, Supreme Court justices were elected at large.2If more than one Supreme Court justice position was open, then all incumbents and challengers competed against all other incumbents and challengers for all of the open positions, with the positions going to the top vote-getters.3 One interesting example of how the election process worked occurred in 1914, when a man who would later be an important Oregon politician lost the Republican nomination to the Oregon Supreme Court by one vote.
For almost 27 years -- from 1917 to 1944 -- Charles L. McNary served as a United States Senator from Oregon, and in 1940 he was the Republican nominee for Vice President.4 In 1914, however, he was an incumbent justice on the Oregon Supreme Court; he had been nominated by Governor Oswald West to fill one of the two new positions created the previous year, when the court had been expanded to seven justices.
For the 1914 election, four of the seven positions on the Supreme Court became open. The political parties, then, would each nominate four candidates for the four available positions. Eight Republican candidates competed for the four Republican nominations. In the votes cast in the Republican primary of May 15, 1914, incumbent justices Thomas A. McBride and Henry J. Bean quickly took a significant lead over the other candidates, thus securing two of the four nominations. As more returns came in, it became clear that Lawrence T. Harris had secured the third nomination.
But the fourth nomination became a neck-and-neck battle between McNary and Henry L. Benson. The lead shifted between the men as returns trickled in from around the state. On May 19, unofficial returns showed Benson leading by just 20 votes -- 31,810, against 31,790 for McNary. The next day, McNary led by two votes (32,985 to 32,983). When unofficial returns were complete on May 22, they showed Benson with a 120-vote lead (34,510 to 34,490). The official returns, however, favored McNary. On June 5, 1914, the Secretary of State announced that McNary had won the fourth nomination by 13 votes -- 34,618 to 34,605.
That might have ended the matter, but for the determination of the candidates. Investigations by both candidates discovered counting errors in the vote tabulations, and so McNary and Benson agreed to a "recount" (actually a misnomer; the official tabulations were checked for possible errors, but no ballots were recounted). The two candidates stipulated to recount only certain identified precincts.
By June 22, McNary and Benson were tied for the nomination. The recount continued through July and August, but the tie was not broken until August 24, when Benson gained one vote. The recount was not complete; although all of McNary's identified precincts had been recounted, only two of Benson's identified precincts had been. But time was running out -- the last day that a candidate could accept the nomination was September 8 -- and Benson decided to rest on his lead without completing the recount of the precincts that he had identified. He refused to enter into any further stipulations regarding the nomination.
That decision upset Governor West. News had broken that a precinct in Curry County, one not identified by either of the candidates, had located 15 ballots that had not been counted. Governor West wanted those missing votes to be counted before he issued the certificate of nomination. But without Benson's consent, the Curry County votes could not be considered -- and Benson contended that travel conditions in that part of the state meant that there was not enough time left to obtain official results on the uncounted ballots in Curry County. (Benson's contention seems to have had merit; the proposed extension of time to recount the missing Curry County votes was until September 22.) On September 8, Governor West delivered the certificate of nomination with shockingly bad grace:
"'While I am firm in my conviction that a complete and correct return of the votes cast at the [primary] election, or even of those precincts where errors have been reported, would have shown Judge McNary and not yourself to be the successful candidate, you have succeeded, through sharp practices and methods which would put to blush the meanest pettifogger in the land, in producing a result upon the face of the returns which leaves this office no alternative, but that of issuing you the certificate.'"
Benson responded, correctly, that there was no evidence McNary had received more votes than Benson. Benson also noted that he had no obligation to wait for a recount of his own identified districts.
With that, Benson became the fourth Republican nominee for the 1914 general election. In November, he won a seat on the Supreme Court. Benson would remain on the Court until his death in October of 1921. 5
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