Legal Definitions - contracausator

The term contracausator is a historical legal term used to describe an individual who has been accused of committing a crime or is being prosecuted for a criminal offense. In essence, it refers to a person against whom a criminal charge has been brought in a legal proceeding.

• Imagine a scenario in a 16th-century English village where a local baker is formally accused of selling underweight loaves of bread, a punishable offense at the time. The village magistrate initiates legal proceedings against the baker to investigate the claims and potentially levy a fine or other penalty. In this historical context, the baker, as the subject of the criminal accusation and prosecution, would have been referred to as the contracausator.

• Consider a colonial-era port city where a ship captain is apprehended and charged with piracy after his vessel is found to have plundered another ship. The colonial authorities bring the captain before a court to face trial for these serious criminal acts. Here, the ship captain, being the person prosecuted for the crime of piracy, would historically be identified as the contracausator in the legal records of the time.