In 1604 it was decided that it was not necessary to prove witchcraft caused the death of a person for there to be punishment for it. All that was necessary now was the practice of witchcraft. The punishment was death by hanging. Also, consulting or feeding an evil spirit was felony.
As Attorney General, Coke introduced the crime of "seditious libel" in a case before the Star Chamber in 1606. These written slanders or libels were viewed as incitements to disorder and private vengeance. Because the tendency to cause quarrels was the essence of the crime, the truth of the libel was not a defense, but might be an aggravation of criminality.
Edward Coke, former Chief Justice of both the Court of Common Pleas and Court of the Queen's Bench, wrote his Reports on court cases of all kinds through forty years and his Institutes on the law, in which he explained and systemized the common law and which was suitable for students. This included a commentary and update of Littleton, published in 1627; old and current statutes; a description of the criminal law; and lastly an explanation of the court system, the last two published in 1644. Coke declared that "a man's house is his castle".
Coke waged a long battle with his wife over her extensive property and the selection of a husband for their daughter. In his institutes, he described the doctrine of coverture as "With respect to such part of the wife's personality as is not in her possession, as money owing or bequeathed to her, or accrued to her in case of intestacy, or contingent interests, these are a qualified gift by law to the husband, on condition that he reduce them into possession during the coverture, for if he happen to die, in the lifetime of his wife, without reducing such property into possession, she and not his representative will be entitled to it. His disposing of it to another is the same as reducing it into his own possession." He further states that "The interest of the husband in, and his authority over, the personal estate of the wife, is, however, considerably modified by equity, in some particular circumstances. A settlement made upon the wife in contemplation of marriage, and in consideration of her fortune, will entitle the representatives of the husband, though he die before his wife, to the whole of her goods and chattels, whether reduced into possession or not during the coverture. … A settlement made after marriage will entitle the representative of the husband to such as estate in preference to the wife. … A court of equity will not interfere with the husband's right to receive the income during the coverture, though the wife resist the application."
- Judicial Procedure -
Defendants may not petition to remove a case to the Westminster courts after a jury is selected because such has resulted in unnecessary expense to plaintiffs and delay for defendants in which they suborn perjury by obtaining witnesses to perjure themselves.
In 1619, by the writ of quo warranto, a government office or official could be made to explain by what right he performed certain acts.
James I asserted an authority to determine the jurisdiction between the various courts.
The Court of High Commission heard mostly matrimonial cases, but also moral offences both of clergy and laity, and simony, plurality, drunkenness, and other clerical irregularities.
The Star Chamber Court still was primarily directed against force and fraud and defended the common people from over-mighty lords and over-pliable Justices of the Peace, for instance by deterring enclosure. It also enforced monopolies. However, there was a growing tendency for King James, who sat on it, to abuse its power with high fines. A lord accused with foul language by a huntsman of following hounds of a chase too closely threatened to use his horse whip on the huntsman's master when the huntsman threatened to complain to his master. The lord was fined 10,000 pounds. James' council used torture to obtain information from accused felons about possible conspiracies against him.