Definition
An archaic English criminal procedure in which, following a verdict of not guilty, the jury was additionally asked whether the defendant had fled to avoid justice — that is, "Did he fly for it?" If the jury answered yes, the defendant could be found to have been a fugitive, which carried distinct legal consequences even absent a conviction on the underlying charge. The inquiry applied primarily to charges of treason and felony. The practice was abolished by statute in England under 7 & 8 Geo. IV, c. 28, § 5 (1827).
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Fly for it" in ordinary English means to flee or attempt to escape a dangerous or difficult situation, typically used informally.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To fly, in older usage, meant to flee or take flight from danger or pursuit — a usage largely consistent with modern informal speech.
The gap here is procedural rather than definitional. The ordinary phrase accurately describes the underlying act — fleeing — but carries none of the juridical weight attached to its legal use. In criminal practice, "fly for it" was not merely a description of behavior but a formal jury inquiry with consequences for forfeiture and legal status. A defendant who "flew for it" stood to lose property even upon acquittal of the underlying offense.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is a research dead-end if treated as live law. Its value is exclusively historical, appearing in English criminal procedure materials from the medieval period through the early nineteenth century. Researchers encountering the phrase in pre-1827 English case reports, indictment records, or treatises should understand that it signals a second, ancillary jury finding running alongside the main verdict — not a separate charge and not part of the substantive verdict of guilt or innocence.
The consequences attached to flight were tied to forfeiture doctrine. An acquitted defendant who was nonetheless found to have fled could forfeit goods to the Crown, a result rooted in the ancient principle that flight itself evidenced consciousness of guilt and warranted punishment independent of conviction. Researchers examining forfeiture history or the development of the fugitive disentitlement doctrine should note this procedural mechanism as an early instance of flight-based legal consequences decoupled from criminal conviction.
The phrase also appears in secondary literature on the history of jury procedure, where it sometimes surfaces in discussions of the expanded role of juries in early English criminal practice — juries were being asked to determine not just guilt but subsidiary facts about the defendant's conduct before and after the alleged offense.
Corpus users searching historical materials should note that source dictionaries truncate the statutory citation. The full reference is 7 & 8 Geo. IV, c. 28, § 5, the Offences Against the Person Act 1828 predecessor statute (sometimes called the Criminal Law Act 1827). Researchers should verify the precise section against the primary text, as abbreviated citations in nineteenth-century legal dictionaries occasionally compress or misattribute statutory provisions.
Historical Dictionary Support
The four source dictionaries are in close agreement on substance, differing only in the level of explanatory detail they provide.
Black's (both editions) and Rapalje & Lawrence are nearly identical in language, presenting the entry as a bare procedural note without explanation of why the inquiry existed or what consequences followed from an affirmative answer.
Bouvier's is the most useful of the four. It layers two complementary explanations: one attributed to Wharton (the general procedural note) and one attributed to Byrne (the substantive purpose — enabling a finding that the defendant had fled to avoid justice in cases of treason or felony). Bouvier's is the only source that explicitly names treason and felony as the applicable offenses, which matters for understanding the doctrine's scope.
What all four sources omit is the consequence. None explains what followed if the jury answered yes — specifically, the exposure to forfeiture of goods and chattels. This gap is significant. A researcher relying solely on these dictionary entries might understand that the inquiry existed without understanding why it was worth asking. The forfeiture link must be sourced from the underlying common law authorities and treatise literature, not from these dictionary entries alone.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Flight from Justice; Forfeiture (Historical English Criminal Law); Jury Function in Early English Criminal Procedure