[ballpoint]

This was apparently pretty typical for English law hundreds of years ago. As I understand it, wealthy people had a lot of influence over the government and were able to lobby for extreme punishments to protect their fortunes. Many of the death sentences were not even carried out by the executioners, because they were so common.

[ionised]

> As I understand it, wealthy people had a lot of influence over the government and were able to lobby for extreme punishments to protect their fortunes.

Western society has come a long way indeed.

Oh, wait...

[V-2]

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/06/18/minnesota.music.down...

"A federal jury Thursday found a 32-year-old Minnesota woman guilty of illegally downloading music from the Internet and fined her $80,000 each -- a total of $1.9 million -- for 24 songs."

(After long battles in courts, the penalty was ultimately settled at $222,000).

[V-2]

    wealthy people had a lot of influence over the government 
    and were able to lobby for extreme punishments to protect their fortunes

Such as candles

[mauricemir]

though over time Juries became unwilling to convict and quite often the amount in question was reduced so they got transported