Definition
To empannel (also spelled impanel or empanel) is to formally select and swear in a jury for a particular case. The term refers to the official process by which the court constitutes a jury — from summoning prospective jurors through voir dire to the final oath — resulting in a seated panel ready to hear evidence and render a verdict. In its narrowest historical sense, the word described the sheriff's act of recording jurors' names on a written roll (the "panel"), but modern usage encompasses the entire jury-formation process.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Alternative form of impanel.
The common definition and the legal definition are functionally identical here — this term has no meaningful life outside a legal context. The entry is noted only because Wiktionary's definition directs researchers to the preferred modern spelling rather than explaining the underlying act.
Common Confusion
EMPANNEL / EMPANEL / IMPANEL: All three spellings describe the same legal act. Black's 2nd edition treats empannel as a variant and cross-references impanel as the canonical entry. Modern court rules, statutes, and practice guides overwhelmingly prefer impanel or empanel (single n). Researchers searching historical sources may encounter empannel with the double n; this is not a different procedure but a spelling that fell out of favor by the twentieth century. When indexing or searching digitized sources, run all three forms.
Why It Matters in Research
Spelling variation is the primary research trap. Corpus searches that query only impanel will miss historical materials that use empannel or the intermediate form empanel. The double-n spelling was common in English legal writing through the nineteenth century and appears with some regularity in early American case law and court records. When researching jury procedure in pre-twentieth-century sources — statutes, treatises, court dockets, or reporters — treat empannel as the period-correct form and cast the search net accordingly.
The substantive act (constituting the jury) connects to several bodies of doctrine that researchers may need to trace separately: the sheriff's authority to summon (the venire), the mechanics of voir dire, challenges for cause and peremptory challenges, and the oath administered to seated jurors. Empannel describes the culminating moment of that sequence, but understanding challenges to the panel — including motions to quash the panel — requires engaging with the broader jury-selection vocabulary.
Researchers should also note that historical usage sometimes distinguished between empanelling a grand jury and empanelling a petit (trial) jury. The procedural rules differed, and sources addressing one may not address the other. The sheriff's role was central in older sources; modern practice distributes jury-selection functions across the clerk's office, the court, and counsel.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (1st edition) defines empannel by reference to Cowell and anchors the definition firmly in the sheriff's administrative act: writing jurors' names "on a parchment schedule or roll of paper." This physical-record conception reflects the original meaning, where the panel was literally the piece of parchment, and empanelling was the act of inscribing it. Black's 2nd edition drops the substantive entry entirely and redirects to impanel, signaling that by the early twentieth century the double-n spelling was already receding. Neither edition offers procedural depth — both treat the term as definitional rather than doctrinal, consistent with their function as vocabulary references rather than practice guides. Historical sources do not address modern statutory frameworks governing jury selection or constitutional dimensions developed through later case law.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Jury Selection; Grand Jury Procedure.