German jurist
Carl Joseph Anton Mittermaier (5 August 1787, in Munich – 28 August 1867, in Heidelberg) was a German jurist. Historian Richard J. Evans has described him as the 'nineteenth century's most influential critic of the death penalty'.
Biography.
He was born in Munich, in the Electorate of Bavaria, and educated at the universities of Landshut and Heidelberg. For some years he was professor at Landshut, then professor at Bonn for two years, 1819–21. For the rest of his life he was professor of law and jurisprudence at Heidelberg.
Mittermaier was a member of the Baden legislature for nearly 20 years previous to 1841, when his grief at the death of his son caused him to withdraw. During that time, he had been three times president of the legislature. When he resumed his seat in 1846, he was again president during the session of 1847–48. In 1848 he was president of the Frankfurt Pre-Parliament (), serving afterwards as representative of the city of Baden in the Parliament, where he advocated confederation, but opposed all extreme measures.
Mittermaier was elected a member of the American Antiquarian Society in 1845, and a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1853.
Work.
His greatest claim to distinction lies in his extensive writings on jurisprudence, among which is a complete manual of criminal law, "Das deutsche Strafverfahren", and he was an earnest advocate of reform in the German criminal procedure and in prison discipline. The number of his published writings is very large, including many treatises on branches of law, discussions on all the important questions of his time connected with jurisprudence, and especially on trial by jury and the penal code. Mittermaier used statistical evidence to claim that capital punishment was an ineffective deterrent, and influenced other German opponents of the death penalty such as Friedrich Noellner.
Among his works are:
His principal works have been translated into many languages. He himself translated Francis Lieber's "Letter on Anglican and Gallican Liberty" into German, and edited the German translation of Lieber's "Civil Liberty".
References.
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