I'm currently reading Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose. In light of the recent prisoner abuse by members of the U.S. military, I found this description of military discipline in the 1790s very interesting:

Discipline was imposed with shocking severity on the enlisted men. Flogging was commonplace; branding somewhat less so but still used as a disciplinary measure. A court-martial at Fort Defiance, in northwestern Ohio, found two soldiers guilty of laying their muskets aside and sitting down while on guard duty. They were sentenced to one hundred lashes well laid on. Theft of a blanket brought fifty lashes; striking a noncommissioned officer was a hundred-lash offense.

Not that I would ever expect a punishment such as flogging to ever be employed in the era of courts and lawyers.