Definition
A Latin writ by which a coroner in England could be removed or discharged from office for cause. The writ operated as a formal legal mechanism to relieve a sitting coroner of the duties and authority of the office upon a showing of sufficient reason stated within the writ itself. It was a writ of English origin and had no direct statutory counterpart in most American jurisdictions.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is a navigational dead end for most American legal research. The writ belongs to a body of English prerogative and administrative writs that did not migrate intact into American practice. Researchers encountering it in early American legal materials are almost certainly reading from an English source, a digest of English common law, or an American treatise drawing heavily on Blackstone or Fitzherbert.
The entry in Rapalje & Lawrence directs the reader to CORONATORE — a common format in that dictionary for grouping related Latin writ names. Researchers using Rapalje & Lawrence should follow that cross-reference rather than treating the stub entry as a complete account.
In the Law Mind corpus, this term is most likely to appear in discussions of coroner law, writ practice, or the inherited English administrative machinery that American states either adapted or discarded in the early nineteenth century. Because American states largely replaced the English coroner system through statute, the writ itself became obsolete in American practice well before the Civil War. Its presence in a text is therefore a useful dating and provenance signal.
Fitzherbert's Natura Brevium (cited as Fitzh. Nat. Brev. 163, 164) is the primary historical authority both Black's editions reference. Blackstone's Commentaries, Book I, page 348, provides the supporting institutional context for the coroner's office and its susceptibility to removal. Researchers seeking the full doctrinal background should consult those sources rather than relying on any dictionary entry, all of which are summary treatments only.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (1st and 2nd editions) give essentially identical entries: both define the writ as a mechanism for removing a coroner in England for cause assigned within the writ, and both cite Fitzherbert and Blackstone. There is no substantive divergence between the two editions on this term.
Rapalje & Lawrence provides no independent definition, redirecting to the CORONATORE grouping. This is consistent with that dictionary's approach to Latin writ families — useful as a navigational pointer but offering no additional analysis.
None of the historical dictionaries address whether any American equivalent existed, how American states handled coroner removal, or what procedural standing the writ had in equity versus common law courts. The silence is unsurprising given the writ's exclusively English application, but researchers should not read that silence as confirmation that no removal mechanism existed in American practice — American states simply used different tools.
Jurisdictional Note
The writ was specific to English legal practice. American jurisdictions developed independent statutory mechanisms for coroner removal, which vary by state. Researchers tracing coroner removal authority in American law should look to state statutes and constitutional provisions rather than to this writ or its English precedents.