## Facts

- Huggins served as gaoler (warden) of a prison and formally appointed Barnes as his deputy to perform the gaoler’s duties.
- Barnes placed prisoner Arne, against Arne’s will, in a newly built room that was very damp, located over the prison sewer and filth area, and deemed unwholesome and dangerous to life.
- Barnes kept Arne confined there until Arne’s death without basic necessities (including fire or sanitary utensils).
- Barnes knew the room’s dangerous condition; Huggins knew the room was newly built and damp.
- Huggins once saw Arne in the room while Arne was confined and turned away as Barnes locked Arne in.
- Arne died from the oppressive imprisonment (“duress”) inflicted through the conditions of confinement.

## Issues

1. Whether a principal gaoler may be convicted of murder for a death caused by a deputy’s unlawful duress absent proof the principal commanded or consented to the acts.
2. Whether the formal appointment of a deputy discharges the principal gaoler from office duties (and related criminal responsibility) until the principal resumes those duties.
3. Whether, on a criminal special verdict, the court may infer facts not expressly found by the jury to sustain a conviction.

## Decision

- The King’s Bench treated Barnes’s conduct—knowingly placing and keeping Arne in life-threatening conditions—as murder.
- The court upheld Huggins’s acquittal, holding he could not be convicted on the special verdict because it did not find that Huggins commanded or consented to the lethal confinement or knew Arne was held there against his will.
- The court stated that, on a special verdict in a criminal case, it may decide only on the facts found and may not supply missing facts by inference.

## Legal Principles

- A principal is not criminally liable for a deputy’s act unless the act was done by the principal’s command or with the principal’s consent.
- The appointment of a deputy discharges the principal from the duties of the office until the principal resumes those duties; the principal’s incidental presence does not, by itself, suspend the deputation.
- Mere awareness of a prisoner’s confinement is insufficient to impose criminal liability for duress without a finding that the principal knew the confinement was against the prisoner’s will or otherwise authorized it.
- On a criminal special verdict, the court cannot infer unfound facts; if the facts found do not establish the charged offense, the defendant must be acquitted.

## Conclusion

The King’s Bench refused to impose status-based murder liability on a gaoler for a deputy’s lethal mistreatment without proof of authorization or knowing assent, and it emphasized that criminal special verdicts bind courts to the jury’s express factual findings without inference.


Rex v. Huggins, 92 Eng. Rep. 518 (K.B. 1730)