Definition
A plea or procedural motion in which a party causes the taking of an inquest (jury verdict) to be halted and shows cause why the inquest should not proceed. The arrest of inquest was a device used in common law pleading to interrupt the empaneling or deliberation of a jury on a previously joined issue, typically by raising a matter that rendered the inquest unnecessary or improper at that stage of the proceedings.
In practice, the pleading operated as a check on the inquest process itself — distinct from a motion challenging the underlying issue or the verdict after the fact. The party invoking it was required to affirmatively demonstrate why the inquest ought not be taken.
Common Confusion
The word "arrest" in this term carries its older legal meaning — to stop or check a proceeding — not the modern criminal law meaning of physical detention. Researchers unfamiliar with common law pleading terminology may misread the term as connected to criminal procedure. It is not. The same older sense of "arrest" appears in the related term "arrest of judgment," where a court halts entry of judgment after verdict on grounds appearing on the face of the record.
Why It Matters in Research
This is a historical common law pleading term with no modern procedural counterpart. Researchers encountering it in pre-19th-century case reports, plea rolls, or treatises on common law procedure should understand it as part of the intricate system of issue-pleading that governed English and early American courts before the procedural reforms of the 19th century — particularly the English Judicature Acts of 1873–1875 and, in the American context, the Field Code reforms beginning in 1848.
The term will appear almost exclusively in materials predating these reforms. Modern procedural systems replaced the rigid structure of common law pleading — including specialized pleas like the arrest of inquest — with unified civil procedure codes. A researcher working in colonial American records, early state court reports, or English common law materials should be alert to the full family of "arrest" pleas, of which this is one member. Do not confuse the procedural use of "arrest" in this term with the criminal law concept of physical detention.
The scarcity of this term in secondary authority means that primary sources — particularly English plea rolls, early American case reports, and common law pleading treatises such as those of Chitty or Stephen — will be the most productive research avenues. Black's Law Dictionary provides only a skeletal entry, and no elaboration appears in standard modern encyclopedias.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary defines the term concisely as a "pleading in arrest of taking the inquest upon a former issue, and showing cause why an inquest should not be taken." This entry captures the functional core of the concept but provides no illustration of when or how the plea was properly invoked, what grounds were recognized, or how it interacted with surrounding procedural steps. No cross-references are provided to related pleas or to the broader doctrine of arrest in common law pleading.
Historical treatises on common law pleading are more instructive than dictionary sources here. The term belongs to a cluster of procedural mechanisms — including the demurrer to evidence, the motion in arrest of judgment, and various special pleas — that gave common law litigants tools to interrupt or deflect the ordinary progress of a case toward jury determination. The logic underlying the arrest of inquest parallels that of the arrest of judgment: both invoke the court's power to halt a proceeding by showing a defect or supervening reason that makes continuation improper.
Historical sources are largely silent on the precise grounds that would support an arrest of inquest, which suggests the plea was used infrequently or situationally, and that its application was highly context-dependent within the facts of particular proceedings.
Jurisdictional Note
This term is rooted in English common law procedure and was carried into early American courts. It has no operative meaning in any modern American or English jurisdiction following procedural consolidation. Research utility is confined to historical legal materials.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The encyclopedia entries on arrest in the criminal law context (Arrest — Probable Cause, Warrants, and Procedure; Resisting Arrest and Obstruction of Law Enforcement; Right to Silence — Pre-Arrest and Post-Arrest) are not relevant to this term. Arrest of inquest is a common law pleading concept unrelated to criminal arrest procedure. No Law Mind Encyclopedia entry directly addresses this term.