 However, there was no appeal (Hodge was executed a mere eight days after the jury handed down their verdict).The jury (composed largely of slave owners) actually recommended mercy, but the court nonetheless sentenced Hodge to death, and so the directions of the trial judge are not treated by commentators as an authoritative precedent.The closest thing to an explicit judicial statement in England that "positive law" would be required to make slavery lawful appears in the judgment of Mr. Justice Best in "Forbes v Cochrane" in 1824.