I presented a paper, "Dignity Takings in the Criminal Law of Seventeenth-Century England and the Massachusetts Bay Colony," as part of the panel: Dignity Takings & Dignity Restoration: New Socio-Legal Contributions to the Constitutional Takings Literature.
Abstract:
When does a punishment for crime cross from being a legitimate goal of
the state to a dignity taking? From the Norman Conquest until the middle of the
eighteenth-century, the Common Law provided that in addition to execution, the
property of convicted felons or traitors was forfeited to the crown and their
blood corrupted so that their heirs could not inherit. I argue this is a clear
instance of dignity takings. The
colonists who traveled to Massachusetts Bay wanted a fresh start and so sought
to create a model society based on Biblical law. Using around 6,000 criminal
cases from 1630 to 1684 this paper argues that a different form of dignity
takings ensued. The use of “scarlet
letters,” pillorying, whipping, and other public punishment were all designed
to single out unworthy members of the community. I push Atuahene’s concept of
dignity takings by expanding the idea of a dignity taking to include not only
the destruction of real or personal property but also the destruction of people’s actual bodies.
