Legal Definitions - committee amendment

Committitur

In legal history, a committitur was an official order or a formal record indicating that a specific individual was to be taken into the custody of the sheriff. This typically meant the person was to be imprisoned, often following a court judgment or for contempt of court. The term is now considered archaic and is rarely, if ever, used in modern legal practice.

• Example 1: Post-Conviction Imprisonment

  After a jury found a defendant guilty of a crime in 19th-century England, the presiding judge would issue a committitur. This formal document served as the instruction to the sheriff to take the convicted individual into custody and transport them to the local jail to begin serving their sentence.

  This example illustrates how a committitur functioned as the official directive for the sheriff to enforce a court's sentencing decision by taking a person into custody for imprisonment.

• Example 2: Contempt of Court

  Imagine a scenario in an early American courtroom where a spectator repeatedly disrupted proceedings despite warnings from the judge. The judge, finding the individual in contempt of court, might have issued a committitur. This order would immediately direct the sheriff's deputies to apprehend the disruptive person and hold them in jail for a specified period as punishment for their disrespect of the court.

  Here, the committitur is shown as a means to enforce immediate detention for a direct offense against the court's authority, rather than after a full criminal trial.

• Example 3: Imprisonment for Debt (Historical Context)

  In eras when imprisonment for debt was common, if a person failed to pay a significant sum owed after a court judgment, the creditor could petition the court. The court might then issue a committitur, ordering the sheriff to arrest the debtor and confine them until the debt was settled or other arrangements were made. This practice was eventually abolished in most jurisdictions.

  This example highlights a historical application of the committitur for civil matters, demonstrating its use to compel compliance with financial obligations through imprisonment, a practice no longer in use.