Deodand became a source of revenue for the Crown before its
Before 1846 the law of
deodands had acted as an insurer of traffic safety for many centuries in England.
Deodands eventually died out and were formally abolished in Britain in the mid-l9th century.
19) Although the "guilty property" fiction is reminiscent of the justification for forfeiture under the law of
deodand, the use of the fiction in admiralty proceedings may have developed out of necessity and practicality, rather than as a genuine belief that the property itself was guilty of wrongdoing.
Finkelstein, The Goring Ox: Some Historical Perspectives on
Deodands, Forfeitures, Wrongful Death and the Western Notion of Sovereignty, 46 TEMP.
237, 241 (2005) (discussing the still mysterious transition from the practice of noxal surrender to
deodand after the Norman conquest).
Alschuler, Introduction Comment, Ancient Law and the Punishment of Corporations: Of Frankpledge and
Deodand, 71 B.
30) The
deodand was tainted by the death it had caused,(31) so with its value, the Crown purportedly paid the church to say masses for the dead person's soul.
Levy concludes, as others have,(6) that the
deodand never truly became a part of the American common law (p.
28)
Deodand derives from the Latin Deo dandum, to be given to God.
23) As a result, the colonists did not carry the concept of the
deodand with them across the Atlantic.
10) Although it originated as a form of religious expiation for causing the death of another, the
deodand continued after it lost religious significance, justified as a form of punishment for negligence.
