Definition
A crier is an officer attached to a court whose function is to make formal proclamations and announcements during judicial proceedings. The crier acts as the voice of the court for ceremonial and procedural purposes, announcing the opening and adjournment of sessions, calling the names of parties, jurors, and witnesses, announcing the swearing of witnesses, proclaiming silence when ordered, and generally maintaining the formal order of proceedings. In some historical practice, the crier also announced special matters such as the acknowledgment of a sheriff's deed or the receipt of a special return on a sheriff's distribution of sale proceeds.
The role is largely ceremonial in modern courts, where many traditional crier functions have been absorbed by clerks, bailiffs, or court officers. In federal and many state courts, the formal "Oyez, oyez, oyez" call opening a session is the most visible surviving remnant of the crier's historical duties.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): One who cries; or an officer who proclaims the orders or directions of a court or gives public notice by loud proclamation, as a town crier.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): One who makes proclamation; specifically, an officer who proclaims the orders or directions of a court, or who gives public notice by loud proclamation, as a town crier.
The common and legal definitions overlap substantially here, but the distinction worth noting is one of scope. Common usage tends to collapse the court crier and the town crier into a single figure, while legal usage confines the term to a specific court-attached officer with defined procedural duties. A town crier is a civic function; a court crier is an officer of the judicial proceeding itself, with duties tied to the formal administration of justice rather than general public announcement.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working with historical court records, procedural manuals, or early American and English legal materials will encounter the crier as a named officer. The significance is primarily structural: understanding that a crier's proclamation carried formal procedural weight — not merely informational weight — matters when interpreting historical records of court openings, oaths, or announcements of admitted counsel.
The role of the crier overlaps functionally with the bailiff and the marshal in modern practice, and historical sources are not always consistent in distinguishing them. Researchers should be alert to the possibility that older records using "crier," "bailiff," and "marshal" may refer to officers performing the same or overlapping duties under different local terminology.
In English legal history, the crier is distinct from the serjeant-at-mace and the usher, though all three could share courtroom-management functions. Burrill's entry connects the term to the Law French "criour" and the Latin "præco" (a public herald or crier), which is useful when tracing the officer's function in pre-modern English and continental court practice.
For American researchers, the crier appears in early state court rules and session records but becomes increasingly rare as a distinct named office through the nineteenth century. The function does not disappear — it migrates.
Historical Dictionary Support
The four source dictionaries are in close agreement on the core definition. All describe the crier as a court officer whose duties center on proclamation: opening and adjournment announcements, calling of parties and witnesses, and general maintenance of courtroom order. The definitions are essentially additive rather than contradictory.
Anderson's Dictionary of Law is the most expansive, adding the specific duty of proclaiming the acknowledgment of a sheriff's deed and announcing the receipt of a special return on a sheriff's distribution — procedural moments that required public notice as a matter of legal form. This detail, absent from the Black's entries, reflects the crier's role in proceedings beyond the trial courtroom proper.
Burrill's Law Dictionary is the most historically grounded, tracing the officer to Law French and Latin antecedents and noting the crier's role in assisting with the administration of oaths — a function that underscores that the crier was not merely a herald but a participant in formal procedural acts.
Both editions of Black's give nearly identical definitions, which reflects the term's stability: the office did not evolve significantly in legal meaning between editions, even as it declined in practical importance.
None of the historical dictionaries address the modern absorption of crier functions into other court officer roles, which is the most practically significant development for researchers working with contemporary materials.
Jurisdictional Note
In the United States federal court system, the crier function survives most visibly in the Supreme Court's formal opening proclamation. In state courts, the extent to which a named "crier" still exists as a distinct officer varies widely; in many jurisdictions the function has been consolidated into the bailiff or clerk role by statute or court rule. English courts historically maintained the crier as a more formally distinct office than American practice generally required.