XVIII amžiaus studijos / The Eighteenth Century Studies

The article deals with the issue of assignment and administration of public punishments by Kaunas Castle Court in the late eighteenth century. In the period under investigation, this court imposed capital and corporal punishments, punishments by imprisonment, removal from office and banishment from the city. Death penalty was imposed on those offenders who were accused of homicide, robbery and theft, although the court did not impose qualified methods of capital punishment. Out of corporal punishments, only flagellation (as the principal and ancillary punishment for crimes against life, health and property, never administered to the nobility) and branding (as an ancillary punishment for thieves) were inflicted. The number of imposed strokes ranged from 50 to 400, with the most common number being 100 strokes. During the analysed period, the main place of confinement continued to the so-called Tower (Upper and Lower) Prison. The Upper Tower Prison registry was dominated by relatively short sentences of 3, 6 and 12 weeks, mostly for violent acts (slaps in the face, forfeiture of real estate, assault with a combat weapon, assault on a nobleman’s house and estate). The Lower Tower Prison was used less frequently (as a punishment for beating a nobleman with a non-combat weapon, unlawful incarceration, and unproven criminal charge offence), but the sentences delivered were longer: from 12, 24 weeks to half a year. From 1782 onwards, instead of imposing the death penalty in cases like theft, robbery and homicide, the court began to give imprisonment sentences (fixed or indefinite) which were non-existent under the GDL law and thus had to be carried out in the Kamianets-Podilskyi prison.