§ III. On the Civilly Dead

Those are called civilly dead who have been condemned to death, to perpetual galleys, or to deportation. - By Roman law the principal effects of civil death are the following: 1st, to lose the ownership of goods, which pass to the heirs, without a testament being valid if they have made one; 2nd, not to be able to receive an inheritance or donations, except that which is destined for their sustenance; 3rd, not to be able to donate goods which they have acquired, whether among the living or by testament. But among us all these things do not have place; for civil death has place only in the crime of plotting the destruction of the United States, which crime is certainly rare. - Cf. Const. U. S. Art. 3, sect. 3, n. 1. - Bouvier, Law Dictionary, under the word Death, n. 22. - Kenrick, tract. 11, n. 36; and tract. 10, n. 87.