Ashford v Thornton

Ashford v Thornton
The Court of King's Bench, circa 1808
Court	Court of King's Bench
Full case name	William Ashford v Abraham Thornton
Decided	16 April 1818
Citation(s)	(1818) 1 B. & Ald. 405, 106 ER 149 at 457
Case history
Prior action(s)	Acquittal of Thornton on charges of murder and rape (R v Thornton, Warwick Assizes, 8 August 1817)
Subsequent action(s)	On 20 April 1818, Ashford indicated that he sought no further proceedings, and Thornton went free.
Court membership
Judge(s) sitting	Lord Ellenborough (Lord Chief Justice), John Bayley, Charles Abbott, George Holroyd
Case opinions
All judges gave opinions upholding the defendant's right to wage battle.
Keywords
Trial by battle

Ashford v Thornton (1818) 106 ER 149 is an English criminal case in the Court of King's Bench which upheld the right of the defendant to trial by battle on a private appeal from an acquittal for murder.

In 1817, Abraham Thornton was charged with the murder of Mary Ashford. Thornton had met Ashford at a dance and had walked with her from the event. The next morning, she was found drowned in a pit with little evidence of violence. Public opinion was heavily against Thornton, but the jury quickly acquitted him of both murder and rape.

Mary's brother William Ashford launched an appeal, and Thornton was rearrested. Thornton claimed the right to trial by battle, a medieval usage that had never been abolished by Parliament. Ashford argued that the evidence against Thornton was overwhelming and that he was thus ineligible to wage battle.

The court decided that the evidence against Thornton was not overwhelming, and that therefore trial by battle was a permissible option under law. Ashford declined the offer of battle, however, and Thornton was freed from custody in April 1818. Appeals such as Ashford's were abolished by statute in 1819, and with them the right to trial by battle.