In 18th century Britain, the penalty for a vast number of serious crimes, including murder, was death. This rule traveled with the colonists to America, and was the law in all states at the time the Eighth Amendment was adopted in 1791. By then, however, a problem with the common-law mandatory death penalty had crept into the legal system. If the jury has only two options—convicting a defendant of murder, where the penalty is death, or acquitting the defendant outright—it has no vehicle to express the sentiment that the defendant should be punished "somehow", but not executed. Faced with this dilemma, some juries would acquit the defendant in order to spare his life. Of course, this meant that an obviously guilty person would go free.