When the time has arrived at which the accused must put in his answer to the indictment, if he do not confess the charge, or stand mute of malice, he may either plead, 1st, to the jurisdiction, which is a good plea when the court before whom the indictment is taken has no cognizance of the offence, as when a case of treason is prosecuted at the quarter sessions; or, 2dly, he may demur, by which he says, that, assuming that he has done every thing which the indictment lays to his charge, he has, nevertheless, been guilty of no crime, and is in nowise liable to punishment for the act there charged.  A demurrer has been termed an issue in law—­the question to be determined being, what construction the law puts upon admitted facts.  If the question of law be adjudged in favour of the accused, it is attended with the same results as an acquittal in fact, except that he may be indicted afresh for the same offence; but if the question be determined against the prisoner, the law, in its tenderness, will not allow him, at least in cases of felony, to be punished for his misapprehension of the law, or for his mistake in the conduct of his pleadings, but will, in such case, permit him to plead over to the indictment—­that is, to plead not guilty; the consequences of which plea we will consider hereafter.

A third alternative is a plea of abatement, which is a plea praying that the indictment may be quashed, for some defect which the plea points out.  This plea, though it was recently, made use of by the defendants in the case now pending in Ireland, is of very rare occurrence in ordinary practice—­a recent statute having entirely superseded every advantage formerly to be derived from this plea, in cases of a misnomer, or a wrong name, and of a false addition or a wrong description of the defendant’s rank and condition, which were the principal occasions on which it was resorted to.

The next alternative which the prisoners may adopt, is a special plea in bar.  These pleas are of four kinds:  1. a former acquittal; 2. a former conviction; 3. a former attainder; 4. a former pardon, for the same offence.  The first two of these pleas are founded on the maxim of the law of England, that no man is to be twice put in jeopardy for the same offence.  A man is attainted of felony, only by judgment of death, or by outlawry; for by such judgment, the prisoner being already dead in law, and having forfeited all his property, there remains no further punishment to be awarded; and, therefore, any further proceeding would be superfluous.  This plea has, however, been practically put an end to by a recent statute.  A plea of pardon, is the converse of a plea of attainder; for a pardon at once destroys the end and purpose of the indictment, by remitting that punishment which the prosecution was calculated to inflict.