this is for delaware
Religious beliefs played heavily in legal thinking of the early colonial period, a period dating from 1607 to the end of the American Revolution (1775-83; a war fought between Great Britain and the American colonies in which the colonies won their independence). The modern American criminal justice system has its roots in the legal concepts carried by early English settlers to the New World. Drawn from the English legal system the colonists knew back home, colonial law evolved substantially through the next three centuries from the time of the first settlements up to the Revolutionary War. Following the war, independence from England allowed a distinctly new American legal system shaped by the experiences of the early colonists.
Read more: Colonial Period - European Settlement Of North America, Factors Influencing Early Colonial Law, Differences From The English Criminal Justice System http://law.jrank.org/pages/11887/Colonial-Period.html#ixzz0ZOtHwJUR