By Stephen D. Bowling

The Kentucky Legislature met for the first time in 1792 in Lexington to begin the process of governing Kentucky. Just five days after Kentucky’s birthday on June 1, 1792, the leaders met to reconcile and codify the “old laws” of the state with the new process established in the Kentucky Constitution.

Many of the laws for the state resulted from sessions at Harrodsburg and focused on fourteen specific criminal acts. The Harrodsburg assemblies also approved punishments that they felt met the severity of the crime but to us seem extremely harsh and even weird.

The following are brief outlines of the laws that Breathitt County would have enforced in its early days as many of these remained on the books through several rewrites of Kentucky’s Constitution.

Here is a brief outline of those laws and their punishments:

1.  Stealing from a free person or accessory before or after the fact-  Punishment set at death.

2.  Murder or accessory before or after the fact-  Punishment set at death.

3.  Armed robbery or an accessory before or after the fact-  Punishment set at death.

4.  Burglary or an accessory before or after the fact-  Punishment set at death or life in prison at the Judge’s discretion.

5.  Rape or an accessory before or after the fact-  Punishment set at death.

6.  Carnally knowing any child under the age of 10 or an accessory before or after the fact-  Punishment set at death.

7.  Willfully setting a fire to any house or building or an accessory before or after the fact-  Punishment set at death.

8.  Forgery of any check, bank draft, banknote, or an accessory before or after the fact-  Punishment set at life at hard labor.

9.  Counterfeiting any and all moneys or an accessory before or after the fact-  Punishment set at life at hard labor.

10.  Horse or cow stealing or an accessory before or after the fact-  Punishment set at death.

11.  Stealing hogs or hog parts or an accessory before or after the fact-  Punishment set at 21 years of hard labor.

12.  Grand Larceny over $100 or an accessory before or after the fact-  Punishment set at 21 years of hard labor.

13.  Breaking Jail under a felony conviction or an accessory before or after the fact-  Punishment set at death.

14.  All convicted felons convicted on a third offense.  Punishment set at death.  All hanged third-time felons were to be “buried without the benefit of Clergy and not buried beside or near a veteran.”

Many misdemeanors and lesser crimes were sentenced by being “whipped at the public whipping post with public notice, no more than 25 strokes of the lash or the cat will be applied.”

Other minor offenses, “such as drunkenness and wife-beating, but not limited” to these offenses were sentenced by the Judge to work on public needs projects.  It was not uncommon to find a person convicted of lying or adultery on the courthouse green “cutting weeds on the common, building roads, cutting wood for widows, or other public needs’ as the Judge sees fit.”

Much has changed in our state since these first laws were enacted to control crime.

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© 2022 Stephen D. Bowling