Definition
De certiorando (Latin: "for certifying") is a writ directed to a sheriff commanding him to certify a particular fact to the court. It belongs to the family of original writs and functioned as a mechanism for obtaining official verification of information from a local officer before or during legal proceedings. The writ compelled the sheriff to make a formal return attesting to specific circumstances — such as the condition of a party, a boundary, or a procedural fact — that the court required to proceed.
Why It Matters in Research
This is a historical writ term with no modern procedural equivalent. Researchers encountering de certiorando in primary sources will find it almost exclusively in materials predating the consolidation of common law pleading — English practice before the Judicature Acts of 1873–1875, and American practice before the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (1938) displaced the old writ system. The writ should not be confused with certiorari, which is the more familiar modern survival; de certiorando is narrower, directed specifically to the sheriff, and concerns factual certification rather than appellate review.
The primary historical reference in the sources — Reg. Orig. 24 — points to the Registrum Omnium Brevium (Register of Writs), the standard English practitioner's compilation of original writ forms. Researchers working with English Year Books, plea rolls, or early American common law pleading materials will encounter writs catalogued under that register. Cross-referencing against the Registrum is essential to understand the procedural context in which de certiorando was invoked.
Because Rapalje & Lawrence's entry appears truncated in available sources, researchers relying on that dictionary alone will find incomplete coverage. Black's two editions are consistent and provide the operative definition, but neither elaborates on when the writ was actually deployed versus other sheriff-directed writs. The writ sits within a cluster of sheriff-addressed original writs — including writs of inquiry and writs of venire facias — and distinguishing them requires attention to the specific function each commanded.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (1st and 2nd editions) are in full agreement, reproducing the same short definition and the same citation to Reg. Orig. 24. The Rapalje & Lawrence entry is incomplete as preserved, offering no additional content. The convergence of the two Black's editions without divergence suggests this was a settled, if rarely litigated, technical term by the late nineteenth century — already receding from active practice into purely academic and historical reference.
None of the historical dictionary sources elaborate on the procedural circumstances triggering the writ, the form of the sheriff's return, or how courts responded when a sheriff failed to certify. Researchers needing that operational detail must go beyond dictionary sources to the Register of Writs itself or to Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium, which catalogued and explained the original writ forms in practical terms.
Jurisdictional Note
De certiorando is exclusively a common law writ of English origin. American courts operating under the old common law pleading system could theoretically invoke it, but direct American authority is sparse. It has no analog in civil law jurisdictions and is functionally obsolete in any jurisdiction that has adopted modern rules-based civil procedure.