Definition
A ceremonial formality historically observed during the arraignment of criminal defendants in English practice. When a prisoner was called to answer charges, the accused would raise the hand to be physically identified and acknowledged by the court. The gesture served as a visible confirmation of the defendant's presence and identity before the proceeding advanced. Both Black's and Burrill's note that the formality was held not to be absolutely necessary — meaning a failure to perform it did not invalidate the arraignment or subsequent proceedings.
Why It Matters in Research
This term is almost exclusively a historical artifact. Researchers encountering it will find it in sources treating pre-modern English criminal procedure, particularly in materials addressing arraignment practice before the formalization of modern identification procedures. The key research point is the embedded legal conclusion: courts recognized early that this was a dispensable ceremony, not a jurisdictional requirement. That distinction matters when reading old case law — an argument that proceedings were void for want of this formality would have been weak even in the eighteenth century.
The citation shared by both dictionaries — 1 W. Bl. 3, 4 — refers to William Blackstone's Reports (Sir William Blackstone's reported cases, not the Commentaries), an eighteenth-century English reporter. Researchers consulting that source will find the court's treatment of the formality as directory rather than mandatory. Do not confuse this with the Commentaries on the Laws of England, which is a separate and far more widely cited work.
Researchers tracing the history of arraignment procedure in American jurisdictions will find that holding up the hand was never meaningfully transplanted into American practice, where arraignment formalities developed along different lines tied to statutory and constitutional requirements (particularly the Sixth Amendment's right to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation). The term appears in American legal dictionaries largely as carried-over English usage rather than as a reflection of domestic practice.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's and Burrill's entries are nearly identical, suggesting both drew from the same underlying source — almost certainly the 1 W. Bl. 3, 4 reference itself, or a shared intermediary digest. Neither dictionary elaborates beyond the bare procedural description and the dispensability note. Neither locates the practice within the broader structure of arraignment (the reading of the indictment, the entry of plea, the identification of the accused), leaving the researcher to supply that context from other sources.
What the historical dictionaries do not address: why the formality existed in the first place (likely to ensure the right person answered the charge in an era before reliable written identification), how courts handled a prisoner who refused or was physically unable to raise the hand, or when the practice fell into complete disuse. Researchers needing that depth should consult treatises on English criminal procedure, including Hale's Historia Placitorum Coronae or Hawkins' Pleas of the Crown, where arraignment formalities are treated more fully.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Arraignment