Definition
To attach, in law, carries two principal meanings that operate across different procedural contexts but share a common thread: the legal fastening of a consequence, claim, or coercive power to a person, property, or proceeding.
1. Procedural seizure. To take or apprehend a person or property by authority of a writ, precept, or court order — the act that initiates or enforces an attachment. This applies both to persons (compelling court appearance) and to property (securing assets to satisfy a potential judgment).
2. Constitutional and procedural vesting. To come into legal operation; to vest or become operative. In this sense, jeopardy "attaches" at a defined moment in a criminal proceeding, triggering double jeopardy protections. Similarly, the Sixth Amendment right to counsel "attaches" upon the initiation of formal adversarial proceedings.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To fasten or join, literally and figuratively; to include a file with an electronic communication; to connect by ties of affection or self-interest; to adhere.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To bind, fasten, tie, or connect; to make fast or join one thing to another; to connect by authority (as an officer attached to a regiment); to win the heart of; to attract.
The gap matters here. In ordinary English, attach is a neutral, transitive action — fastening one thing to another. In law, it carries coercive or constitutional weight. To attach property is not merely to connect it to a claim; it is to bring it under judicial authority. To say that jeopardy attaches is not metaphor — it marks a precise legal threshold with procedural consequences that cannot be undone by the word's casual meaning. Researchers reading historical pleadings or constitutional opinions must register when "attach" is doing legal work, not descriptive work.
Common Confusion
Attach vs. arrest. The historical dictionaries draw this distinction directly, and it remains useful. An arrest operates against the person and transfers custody immediately to a higher authority. To attach, historically, meant to seize the person or goods and hold them subject to the court's direction — a more provisional, court-directed act. The party attached was kept available for a future day; the party arrested was delivered at once. Modern usage has blurred this distinction in common speech, but it remains alive in procedural contexts, particularly in civil attachment of property, where the custodial logic differs from criminal arrest.
Attach vs. garnish. Both are prejudgment remedies, and researchers sometimes use the terms interchangeably. Attachment typically reaches property directly in the defendant's possession or control; garnishment reaches property held by a third party (a bank, an employer) on the defendant's behalf. The legal mechanisms, notice requirements, and exemptions often differ. See the Civil Procedure encyclopedia entry for the full distinction.
Why It Matters in Research
This term requires disambiguation before research can begin. A legal researcher encountering "attach" in a source must determine which of its functions is operative: (1) the procedural-seizure sense, governing civil attachment of property and writs compelling appearance; (2) the constitutional-vesting sense, governing when double jeopardy or right-to-counsel protections become operative; or (3) the older common-law contempt sense, in which courts attached persons (officers, jurors, witnesses) for misconduct.
In historical sources, the contempt usage is frequent and easy to misread. Burrill notes that courts issued attachments against gaolers, court officers, jurors, witnesses, and inferior judges for misconduct or neglect — a coercive, quasi-criminal power that modern readers may not recognize as an "attachment" at all.
The constitutional vesting sense — "jeopardy attaches," "the right attaches" — is largely a twentieth-century analytical development. Historical dictionaries do not capture it. A researcher working on Sixth Amendment right-to-counsel doctrine or double jeopardy chronology will not find meaningful support in Black's or Burrill for the vesting sense of attach; those sources are focused on writs and procedural seizure. The constitutional usage emerged through case law and is properly tracked through the encyclopedia entries and case law rather than through the historical dictionaries.
Jurisdictional variation in the procedural-seizure sense is significant: states differ substantially in when pre-judgment attachment is available, what property is exempt, and what bond or hearing requirements apply. A historical source using "attach" without specifying jurisdiction may be describing a procedure that no longer exists in its described form, or one that has been constitutionalized (post-Sniadach v. Family Finance Corp.) in ways the source predates.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's (both editions) and Burrill agree on the core procedural definition: to take or apprehend by commandment of a writ or precept. All three emphasize the distinction from arrest — attach operates on both persons and goods; arrest operates only on the person. Burrill adds the broadest catalogue of contexts, noting that attachment reached not only defendants but officers, jurors, witnesses, and judges for contempt. This contempt application is underemphasized in Black's and often overlooked by modern researchers.
Anderson's Dictionary of Law does not provide a direct entry for "attach" in the source material provided, which itself is instructive: the term was considered sufficiently covered under "Attachment" in most historical dictionaries, and researchers should expect to find the substantive treatment under that headword rather than the verb form.
None of the historical sources address the constitutional vesting sense. This is not a gap in historical scholarship — it is a chronological fact. The analytical framework in which jeopardy "attaches" at jury empanelment, or the right to counsel "attaches" at arraignment, was developed through twentieth-century constitutional adjudication. Researchers should not expect the historical dictionaries to illuminate that usage.
Jurisdictional Note
Prejudgment attachment procedure varies substantially by state. Following due process limitations established through federal constitutional litigation, most states now require notice and a hearing before attachment, though emergency exceptions exist. Researchers using historical procedural sources — particularly pre-1970s material — should verify whether described attachment procedures remain valid in their jurisdiction.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Attachment, Garnishment, and Prejudgment Remedies (The Law Mind Civil Procedure & Evidence Encyclopedia)
Double Jeopardy — Attachment and Scope (The Law Mind Criminal Law Encyclopedia)
Right to Counsel — Attachment and Critical Stages (The Law Mind Criminal Law Encyclopedia)