DEODAND

deodand  (dee-<<schwa>>-dand).Hist.  Something  (such  as  an  animal)  that  has  done  wrong

and must therefore be forfeited to the Crown. • This practice was abolished in 1846.

“In the oldest records, we see no attempt to distinguish the cases in which the dead man was

negligent from those in which no fault could be imputed to him, and the large number of deodands

collected in every eyre suggests that many horses and boats bore the guilt which should have been

ascribed to beer. A drunken carter is crushed beneath the wheels of his cart; the cart, the cask of

wine that was in it and the oxen that were drawing it are all deodand. Bracton apparently thought

it an abuse to condemn as deodand a thing that had not moved; he would distinguish between the

horse which throws a man and the horse off which a man stupidly tumbles, between the tree that

falls and the tree against which a man is thrown. We do not see these distinctions in the practice of

the courts.” 2 Frederick Pollock & Frederic W. Maitland, History of English Law Before the Time

of Edward I 474 n.4 (2d ed. 1899).

“[W]hen in 1716 the coroner’s jury of Yarmouth declared a stack of timber which had fallen

on  a  child  to  be  forfeited  as  a  deodand,  it  was  ransomed  for  30s.,  which  was  paid  over  to  the

child’s father.” J.W. Cecil Turner, Kenny’s Outlines of Criminal Law 7 (16th ed. 1952). [Blacks Law 8th]