the svea court of appeal in the early modern period 206 Procedural Rules,568 a court of appeal should refer death sentences pronounced by a court of first instance to the King before execution, together with a report of its own, but if the monarch was “away”, the court of appeal was entrustedwith the right to give final sentence. Some types of case (where a clear practice had been developed by the King as supreme judge) were later expressly delegated to the courts of appeal for final decision and the appeal courts gradually began to understandleuterationas a legitimate way of mitigation, based on equity and thus independent of any reports referred to the King. The punishment prescribed by law was replaced by socalled “arbitrary” sanctions. This liberty of the appeal courts in relation to both the wordings of the law and the King’s judicial functions could of course be interpreted in negative terms by the monarchs in periods of strengthened royal authority.569 That the leuteration and its “arbitrary” sanctions were of great importance has been shown by Thunander: out of 1,342 death sentences from the provinces of Småland and Öland 1635– 1699 were 982 mitigated by the Göta Court of Appeal, and 80 were referred to the King. Of those 80, only 14 were confirmed.570 From a procedural point of view, cases concerningcrimen læsæmaiestatis were somewhat different since, as mentioned above, they should be heard by the court of appeal in first instance. Even if most original seventeenth century Svea Court of Appeal verdicts in criminal cases are lost,571 the change in criminal law can be illustrated by using the collections of Magnus Becchius Palmcrantz (1653– 1703). In 1684, Becchius began to collect and systematically order decisions in criminal and private law cases from the King and the Court of Appeal. His work was supported by the State, was regularly checked by the Court of Appeal and was used practically by both the Court of Appeal, the Council of the Realm and the 1686 Law Commission – a commission to which Becchius was secretary from its inception. In 1692 Becchius was ennobled and granted the family name Palmcrantz.572 The Royal Svea Court of Appeal’s verdicts and explanations concerning capital offences with appurtenant 568 Kongl. May:tz til Swerige Rättegångs Process […], article 11, Kongl. stadgar, ed. Schmedeman, p. 149. 569 Olin, Gustav 1934 pp. 823-844. Cf. Jägerskiöld, Stig 1964 pp. 274-284. 570 Thunander, Rudolf 1993 p. 195. 571 Malmsten, E. 1916 pp. 113-144. 572 Edelstam; Jägerskiöld, Stig 1964 p. 267.
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