Definition
A writ of English common law origin commanding the sheriff to produce the bodies of jurors and, if necessary, to distrain (seize) their lands and goods as security to compel their attendance at trial. Issued from the Court of Common Pleas, the writ functioned as that court's procedural equivalent to the distringas juratores, which served the same coercive purpose in the King's Bench. The writ was abolished by the Common Law Procedure Act 1852, section 104, and has no operational counterpart in modern practice.
Common Confusion
HABEAS CORPORA JURATORUM versus DISTRINGAS JURATORES: These writs served identical functions — compelling juror attendance by threatening or effecting seizure of property — but issued from different courts. Habeas corpora juratorum belonged to the Court of Common Pleas; distringas juratores belonged to the King's Bench. Researchers encountering one in historical records should be alert to which court generated the document, as the distinction is diagnostic for identifying the court of origin, not a difference in purpose or effect.
HABEAS CORPORA JURATORUM versus the modern HABEAS CORPUS: Despite the shared Latin root habeas (you shall have), these writs are entirely unrelated. Habeas corpus commands the production of a person to test the legality of their detention. Habeas corpora juratorum commands the production of jurors to enforce their attendance at trial. The superficial verbal similarity has occasionally caused confusion in historical indexing and secondary sources.
Why It Matters in Research
This term matters almost exclusively to researchers working in English legal history, pre-1852 procedural practice, or the comparative history of jury administration. Several navigational points apply:
First, the 1852 cutoff is hard. The Common Law Procedure Act 1852 abolished this writ expressly. Any source citing or discussing the writ as operative procedure post-1852 is either reprinting pre-abolition material or in error. Editions of Black's published after 1852 retain the entry as historical record, not current law.
Second, court-of-origin matters for archival research. Records of habeas corpora juratorum will appear in Common Pleas rolls and files, not King's Bench records. Searching the wrong court's archives will yield nothing. The parallel distringas juratores should be searched separately in King's Bench records.
Third, the Burrill entry is partially corrupted in surviving reproductions. The available text appears to include a fragment from an adjacent entry (likely habeas corpus ad satisfaciendum or a similar writ), cutting off mid-definition and mid-Latin phrase. Researchers relying on Burrill for this term should cross-check against Blackstone's Commentaries (Book III) and Tidd's Practice, both of which Burrill cites and which provide complete treatments.
Fourth, the writ illuminates the structural differences between Common Pleas and King's Bench practice. For scholarship on English procedural history, the existence of parallel but court-specific writs for the same function reflects the institutional rivalry and procedural jealousy between those courts — a theme developed at length in secondary literature on the development of English common law procedure.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's (1st and 2nd editions) give substantively identical definitions, which is consistent with the term's purely historical status by the time both editions were compiled — there was no living practice to update. Both editions correctly identify the abolition date and statute and note the parallel to distringas juratores. The entry in Black's is adequate as a first orientation but brief.
Burrill's entry, as preserved, is the least useful of the three sources. The surviving text contains what appears to be a transcription or typesetting error, producing a fragment that does not form a complete definition. The citations Burrill includes — Blackstone's Commentaries Book III at pages 129–130, Stephens' Commentaries, and Tidd's Practice — are genuinely instructive and point to the most detailed treatments available in period sources. Researchers should follow those citations rather than rely on Burrill's truncated text.
Blackstone himself describes the writ in the context of ensuring jury attendance as a matter of compulsory process, situating it within the broader scheme of common law trial procedure. Tidd's Practice provides the most granular procedural description of how the writ operated in practice, including the mechanics of distraint.
None of the historical dictionaries address the writ's origins or the period before Common Pleas and King's Bench had fully differentiated their parallel processes — a gap that specialized legal history scholarship fills better than any of these dictionary sources.
Jurisdictional Note
This writ was exclusively English in origin and application. It never had a direct American counterpart; colonial and early American courts did not adopt the Common Pleas / King's Bench structural distinction that gave the writ its purpose. Researchers working in American legal history will not encounter this writ in domestic records.