Subject_1 DECISIONS of the LORDS OF COUNCIL AND SESSION, reported by SIR JOHN LAUDER, LORD FOUNTAINHALL.
Date: 4 February 1668
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One Mr. Wm. Somervell being condemned in a criminal court for usury, and having raised a reduction of the verdict of the assize, before the Lords of Session, on error and iniquity committed by them; it came to be debated, if the verdict of an assize might be reduced on that ground before the Lords.
Contended,—The Justice-depute being a Judge distinct and independent from the civil Judge, and the verdict of an assize being a sovereign sentence of a criminal Court, it could not fall under the compass of the Lords of the Session, or their review; and it is a novelty, and of a dangerous consequence, to reduce the verdict of a criminal assize. On the other hand Alleged,—That they craved only the verdict to be reduced as to the civil effects of it, and not as to the criminal.
This was an action extraordinary, and never heard of before; the same came not to a sentence, but was agreed.
Act. Harper and Wallace.Alt. Lockhart.
Advocates' MS. folio 59.
