Definition
A common law criminal offense consisting of any corrupt attempt to influence a juror or jury outside the proper channels of evidence and argument presented in open court. Embracery covers a broad range of improper conduct directed at jurors: bribery, promises, threats, entreaties, persuasion, flattery, entertainment, gifts, and similar inducements — whether or not the juror actually returns a verdict, and whether or not any verdict returned is true or false. The offense is complete upon the attempt; no successful corruption is required.
The person who commits embracery is called an embraceor (also spelled embracer). The juror who accepts such improper influence may be independently liable.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): An attempt to bribe or illegally influence a jury or a member of a jury to one side or the other.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): An attempt to influence a court, jury, etc., corruptly, by promises, entreaties, money, entertainments, threats, or other improper inducements.
Editorial note: The common and legal definitions are close, but the legal offense is narrower in one important respect and broader in another. It is narrower because embracery at common law is directed specifically at jurors, not courts or witnesses generally — conduct aimed at judges or witnesses falls under distinct offenses. It is broader because the legal offense captures subtle inducements (entertainment, flattery, entreaties) that ordinary usage might not recognize as criminal, and requires no proof that the corruption succeeded.
Common Confusion
Embracery is frequently grouped with — but should be distinguished from — obstruction of justice and jury tampering. Obstruction of justice is the broader modern statutory category under which conduct once prosecuted as embracery now typically falls; jury tampering is the modern colloquial label for the same underlying conduct. Historically, embracery is also a species of maintenance (the broader offense of improperly intermeddling in another's lawsuit), a relationship Rapalje & Lawrence explicitly notes. Researchers should not treat embracery and maintenance as synonyms: maintenance is the genus, embracery the species limited to jury corruption.
Why It Matters in Research
Embracery is a largely obsolete common law offense that has been absorbed into modern statutory frameworks — primarily obstruction of justice and jury tampering statutes — at both the federal and state levels. Researchers working in pre-twentieth-century materials will encounter it regularly; researchers in modern sources will find the term itself rare but the underlying conduct prosecuted under different headings.
Several navigational traps apply. First, historical sources vary on whether embracery requires that the targeted individual actually be seated as a juror, or whether attempting to corrupt a prospective juror before impanelment suffices. Bouvier's broad framing — covering any attempt regardless of whether the juror gives a verdict — suggests the offense attached early in the process, but not all authorities agree. Second, the relationship to maintenance matters for indexing: in older digests and abridgments, embracery may be indexed under MAINTENANCE rather than as a standalone entry, or cross-referenced under JURY. Researchers in Bacon's Abridgment, Hawkins's Pleas of the Crown, and similar sources should check both headings. Third, the spelling variants (embraceor, embracer, embraceour) appear inconsistently across historical sources and may affect full-text search retrieval. Fourth, because embracery required no completed act of corruption, it sits in an important category of inchoate offenses useful for tracing the development of attempt doctrine in criminal law.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical sources show strong agreement on the core definition but meaningful variation at the edges. All six dictionaries converge on the same essential wrong: corrupt, out-of-court attempts to sway a juror by improper means. The lists of prohibited means — promises, money, persuasions, entreaties, entertainment, threats — are broadly consistent, though Bouvier's is the most comprehensive in explicitly adding threats and noting that the verdict's truth or falsity is irrelevant.
The most useful amplification comes from Rapalje & Lawrence, which provides the clearest doctrinal boundary: the offense is defined by exclusion from legitimate conduct, covering everything "except the production of evidence and argument in open court." This framing is more analytically precise than the other entries and aligns with Stephen's Criminal Digest. Rapalje & Lawrence also explicitly identifies embracery as a species of maintenance — a connection the other dictionaries leave implicit or omit entirely.
Burrill notes the English punishment (fine and imprisonment) and cites Hawkins and Chitty, providing useful source-chain guidance for researchers working backward through the English authorities. Black's second edition adds case citations, including State v. Williams and Grannis v. Branden, for researchers needing American judicial authority.
What the historical sources do not address: the displacement of embracery by statutory offenses, the precise mens rea required, and whether the offense could attach to grand jurors as well as trial jurors — a question relevant in some nineteenth-century American cases.
Jurisdictional Note
Embracery as a named common law offense has been abolished or superseded by statute in most American jurisdictions, replaced by jury tampering and obstruction of justice provisions that vary significantly in scope and penalty. A small number of states retained the common law offense by name well into the twentieth century. English law formally abolished embracery by statute in 1981. Researchers working in specific jurisdictions should confirm whether the common law offense survived or was codified.