Definition
A Latin phrase meaning "ten such" or "ten tales jurors." Decem tales is the name of a writ used in English practice commanding the sheriff to summon ten additional jurors when the existing panel at a trial at bar is deficient by that number. The writ issues when challenges, absences, or disqualifications have reduced the jury panel below the number required to proceed, and the court needs to supplement it with bystanders or other eligible persons drawn from the surrounding area. The figure ten is not incidental — the specific number required by the court determines which tales writ issues, and decem tales is the variant for a shortfall of exactly ten.
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Common Confusion
Decem tales belongs to a family of similarly named writs — quinque tales (five), octo tales (eight), and others — that differ only in the number of jurors to be summoned. Researchers encountering any of these writs should not treat them as interchangeable; each reflects the precise numerical deficit at the time of issuance. All are species of the broader tales de circumstantibus procedure and should be researched together with the parent entry TALES. Rapalje & Lawrence cross-references only to TALES, signaling that the substantive doctrine lives there; decem tales is a procedural instrument, not a doctrine unto itself.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term appears almost exclusively in English common law sources and early American practice materials that were directly modeled on English procedure. It is unlikely to appear in modern American statutory or case law in active use; encounters with this term in the Law Mind corpus will almost certainly be in treatises, form books, or historical judicial records from the eighteenth or early nineteenth century.
The critical navigational point is that decem tales cannot be understood in isolation. Its meaning and operation depend entirely on the broader tales framework — the power of a court to complete a jury panel from bystanders when the original array is exhausted or insufficient. Researchers should move immediately to TALES and TALES DE CIRCUMSTANTIBUS for the governing doctrine, statutory history, and American reception.
One indexing trap: historical sources sometimes list tales writs by their Latin numeral (quinque, sex, octo, decem) and sometimes render the number in English ("ten tales"). A corpus search for only one form may miss the other. Burrill's entry, for instance, supplies record citations (3 Bl. Comm. 364; Reg. Jud. 30b; 3 Steph. Comm. 602) that confirm the writ's English procedural pedigree.
The secondary meaning preserved in Black's — a Roman military or administrative officer commanding ten soldiers, or an officer at Constantinople overseeing burial of the dead — is almost certainly irrelevant in any Anglo-American legal research context. If this sense appears in a source, the document is almost certainly discussing Roman law directly, not English or American procedure.
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Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries are in close agreement on the primary definition. Black's (both editions) and Burrill reproduce nearly identical text, all tracing the writ to Blackstone's Commentaries (3 Bl. Comm. 364) and Stephen's Commentaries (3 Steph. Comm. 602). Burrill adds Reg. Jud. 30b as a further record-level citation. Rapalje & Lawrence dispatch the term with a bare cross-reference to TALES, which accurately reflects that the doctrine is housed there.
The notable divergence is Black's inclusion of the Roman law senses — the decurion-type officer and the Constantinople burial official — which Burrill and Rapalje omit entirely. These entries appear to have been carried forward in Black's as encyclopedic completeness rather than practical utility. No historical dictionary develops the Roman senses beyond a single sentence, reinforcing that they are marginal glosses rather than working definitions for legal practitioners or researchers.
What the historical sources collectively omit: any treatment of American statutory reception, abolition, or survival of the tales procedure. By the time these dictionaries were compiled, American jurisdictions had largely codified or eliminated the common law tales process through jury statutes and court rules, but the dictionaries do not note this transition.
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Jurisdictional Note
Decem tales as an active writ is an English common law instrument. American jurisdictions that absorbed the tales procedure generally codified it by statute in the nineteenth century, rendering the specific Latin writ names obsolete in practice. Research into tales procedure in any particular American jurisdiction should consult that jurisdiction's early jury statutes rather than relying on the common law writ framework.
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