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Four days after the Court of King's Bench upheld an English murder suspect's right to a trial by battle in Ashford v Thornton, the plaintiff declined to fight, allowing the defendant to go free.
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Court of King's Bench (England)
English common law court (c. 1200–1873)
The Court of King's Bench, formally known as The Court of the King Before the King Himself, was a court of common law in the English legal system. Created in the late 12th to early 13th century from the curia regis, the King's Bench initially followed the monarch on his travels.…Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
Trial by combat
Method of settling accusations within Germanic law by dueling
Trial by combat was a method of Germanic law to settle accusations in the absence of witnesses or a confession in which two parties in dispute fought in single combat; the winner of the fight was proclaimed to be right. In essence, it was a judicially sanctioned duel. It…Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
Ashford v Thornton
1818 English legal case upholding 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.Source: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)