A
bill of attainder (also known as an
act of attainder or
writ of attainder or
bill of penalties) is an act of a
legislature declaring a person, or a group of persons, guilty of some crime, and punishing them, often without a trial. As with
attainder resulting from the normal judicial process, the effect of such a bill is to nullify the targeted person's
civil rights, most notably the right to own property (and thus pass it on to heirs), the right to a title of nobility, and, in at least the original usage, the right to life itself. Bills of attainder passed in Parliament by
Henry VIII on 29 January 1542 resulted in the executions of a number of notable historical figures.