Definition
Decies tantum (Latin: "ten times as much") was an ancient English writ used against a juror who had accepted a monetary bribe in exchange for his verdict. The writ entitled the injured party to recover ten times the amount of the bribe from the offending juror. Under some authorities, the writ also lay against embraceors — persons who corruptly interfered with or tampered with a jury from outside.
Why It Matters in Research
This is a historically bounded term with no modern operational equivalent. Researchers will encounter it almost exclusively in pre-nineteenth century English legal materials — treatises on old writs, histories of common law procedure, and records touching jury corruption in the medieval and early modern periods. The writ was created by statute (38 Edw. III, c. 12, though Burrill's notes a competing attribution to 34 Edw. III, c. 8) and was repealed by 6 Geo. IV, c. 50, § 62, enacted in 1825. Any source citing decies tantum as active law after that date should be treated with suspicion.
The extension of the writ to embraceors is noted by Burrill but not by Black's, and absent from Rapalje & Lawrence's entry on the writ itself. Researchers exploring jury-tampering doctrine in historical sources should be alert to this broader application: the term may appear in contexts involving embracery rather than direct juror bribery. These are related but distinct offenses, and the writ's reach across both categories is a point where historical sources diverge. See EMBRACERY for the parallel doctrine.
Because the term is Latin and appears in English practice records, it may surface in law French or Latin-heavy sources under variant spellings or abbreviations. The Registrum Omnium Brevium (Reg. Orig.) is the primary register where the writ form appears, cited by Burrill at 188b. Reeves' History of the English Law is the secondary narrative source most likely to contextualize it.
For corpus researchers tracing the history of jury integrity rules or the evolution of penalties for corruption, decies tantum represents an early statutory model of treble-or-multiple damages as a deterrent mechanism — a structural ancestor of modern punitive and statutory multiplier damages, though the doctrinal lineage is indirect.
Historical Dictionary Support
The four source dictionaries are in close agreement on the core definition: a writ against a bribed juror, recovering ten times the bribe. Black's (both editions) and Rapalje & Lawrence are essentially identical in substance, differing only in citation detail. Burrill's is the most complete entry, adding the embraceor application, citing the Registrum Originale directly, and flagging the statutory attribution dispute between 38 Edw. III and 34 Edw. III — a discrepancy Reeves himself noted and which reflects genuine ambiguity in the historical record.
None of the dictionaries address the writ's practical frequency of use or its procedural mechanics in depth. Burrill's citation to Reeves' History (vol. 3, p. 56) is the most useful pointer for researchers wanting narrative context. The term does not appear in later American legal dictionaries with any operational significance, confirming that it did not migrate into American common law practice.