In English criminal law, attainder or attinctura is the metaphorical 'stain' or 'corruption of blood' which arises from being condemned for a serious capital crime (felony or treason). It entails losing not only one's property and hereditary titles, but typically also the right to pass them on to one's heirs. Both men and women condemned of capital crimes could be attainted.
Attainder by confession results from a guilty plea at the bar before judges or before the coroner in sanctuary. Attainder by verdict results from conviction by a jury. Attainder by process results from a legislative act outlawing a fugitive.
Passage in Parliament
In the Westminster system, a bill of attainder is a bill passed by Parliament attainting persons condemned for high treason, or, in rare cases, a lesser crime. Notably, a person thus attainted need not have been convicted of treason in court of law. Consequently, attainder has historically been used for political purposes against people whose guilt would have been difficult to prove, or indeed who were entirely innocent. Bills of attainder are also available to condemn criminals who cannot be brought to justice.
A bill of attainder was last passed in Britain in 1798. Attainders by confession, verdict and process were abolished in the United Kingdom in 1870.
Section 9 of Article One of the United States Constitution provides that no bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed by Congress. Another section forbids all states from passing them.
Corruption of blood
Corruption of blood is one of the consequences of attainder. The descendants of an attainted person could not inherit either from the attainted criminal (whose property had been forfeited on conviction) or from their other relatives through the criminal. For example, if a son is executed for a crime leaving innocent grandsons as orphans, and the innocent grandfather has other children besides the criminal, the property of the criminal is forfeited to the crown. But when the grandfather dies, the property of grandfather will not be seized by the Crown, nor pass to the grandchildren: it passes to the other children of the grandfather.
While the United States Constitution prohibits corruption of blood, it is nonetheless possible in many states for a crime to affect the inheritance rights of innocent relatives of a criminal due to the slayer rule.