Definition
A court of criminal jurisdiction that existed in Pennsylvania, held concurrently with the court of quarter sessions and presided over by the same judges. The court exercised authority to try and discharge prisoners held in jail awaiting trial on criminal charges. Its function was to ensure that persons confined in jail were brought to trial and either convicted, acquitted, or released — clearing the jail of untried prisoners through formal judicial process.
The name derives from the older English commission of jail delivery, a royal writ directing judges to clear a particular jail by trying all prisoners held there. The Pennsylvania court adopted this terminology to describe a parallel criminal jurisdiction built into the state's court structure.
Common Confusion
"And general jail delivery" is frequently misread as a descriptive phrase rather than a proper court name. In Pennsylvania legal records, it appears as part of the formal title of the court of quarter sessions: the full designation was often rendered as "The Court of General Quarter Sessions of the Peace and General Jail Delivery." Researchers encountering this phrase in case headings, dockets, or statutes should recognize it as identifying a distinct (if co-constituted) court with its own criminal jurisdiction, not merely a description of what the quarter sessions court happened to do. The two courts were held together and staffed identically, which compounds the confusion, but they were understood as separate institutions with separate jurisdictional foundations.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is almost exclusively relevant to Pennsylvania legal history and to researchers working in Pennsylvania criminal court records from the colonial period through the nineteenth century. Several research traps are worth flagging:
First, the court appears under varying names in historical records. Docket books, newspaper accounts, and legal filings may reference the court of quarter sessions alone, the court of general jail delivery alone, or the combined designation. Researchers should not assume inconsistent naming reflects different proceedings.
Second, the court's jurisdiction was criminal. Civil matters went elsewhere. Researchers tracing a Pennsylvania defendant's criminal history in pre-twentieth-century records should look for this court alongside (or as part of) the quarter sessions records.
Third, the merger of courts through Pennsylvania's judicial reorganization means this court no longer exists as a distinct institution. Its successor functions were absorbed into the Court of Common Pleas as Pennsylvania restructured its trial court system in the twentieth century. Researchers working in modern Pennsylvania courts will not encounter this designation.
Fourth, the reference in Black's to Brightly's Purdon's Digest is worth following for researchers needing the statutory framework. Purdon's Digest compiled Pennsylvania statutes and is a foundational source for Pennsylvania legal history; the pages cited address the court's constitution and powers directly.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) is the only historical dictionary source providing a formal entry on this term, and its treatment is brief but accurate. Black's correctly identifies the court as Pennsylvania-specific, notes its concurrent operation with the quarter sessions, and points researchers to Brightly's edition of Purdon's Digest for the underlying statutory authority. No entry exists in Bouvier's or other standard legal dictionaries of the period, which reflects how localized this institution was — it was a Pennsylvania peculiarity, not a general common-law concept transplanted across American jurisdictions.
The English antecedent — the commission or writ of jail delivery — appears in Blackstone and in English legal dictionaries with considerably more depth, but that lineage is distinct from the Pennsylvania court. Researchers should be cautious about importing the English doctrine wholesale; the Pennsylvania institution was a statutory court with its own procedural character, not simply a colonial transplant of the English commission.
Jurisdictional Note
This term is Pennsylvania-specific. While the English commission of jail delivery influenced terminology in other American colonies and early states, the court called "And General Jail Delivery" as a distinct institutional form is a Pennsylvania creation. Researchers working in other states who encounter "jail delivery" language are likely dealing with the older English commission concept, not this Pennsylvania court.