I can't speak to the 1820s, but I have done some recent work related to a Buckingham County planter who was convicted at the Richmond federal court of counterfeiting notes of the Bank of the U.S. in 1804. He ended up serving his time at the state penitentiary, there being no federal jails. All of this involved negotiations between state and federal officials over who would pay for the incarceration, suggesting to me that it was a rare occasion. As I recall, the critical factors were an assessment of the defendant as a major flight risk and the length of his sentence (about 10 years), both of which made the state pen the only viable facility (the John Marshall Papers has some good info on the case). For less severe sentences and less problematic prisoners, the city jail might have served the purposes of the U.S. marshal. Perhaps things were more regularized by the 1820s--I rather doubt it but would be happy to learn otherwise.

Bland Whitley
Jefferson Papers

________________________________________
From: Discussion of research and writing about Virginia history [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of Michael Nicholls [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Wednesday, December 03, 2014 9:44 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [VA-HIST] incarceration from Fed court

If a person was found guilty and sentenced to jail in the Federal court sitting in Richmond in the 1820's, where was the sentence served?

Michael L. Nicholls
Professor of History, Emeritus
Dept. of History
Utah State University
Logan, UT 84322-0710

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