Definition
In legal usage, indifferent means impartial, unbiased, and without personal interest in the outcome of a proceeding. The term is applied primarily to three categories of legal actors:
1. Jurors. A juror is indifferent when the mind is in a state of neutrality with respect to both the parties and the subject matter of the trial — neither inclined toward conviction nor acquittal, neither biased for nor against either party. This is the foundational qualification for jury service, and its absence is the basis for challenges to a juror's competency.
2. Arbitrators and appraisers. An arbitrator or court-appointed appraiser must be indifferent in the sense of having no personal stake in the result and no relationship that would bias the evaluation. This requirement applies with particular force to appraisers appointed to value property taken in execution.
3. Witnesses. Though less commonly framed in these terms in modern practice, historical sources include witnesses among those who ought to be indifferent — meaning their testimony should be free from the distorting influence of partiality or personal interest.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A person who is indifferent or apathetic; showing no interest or concern.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Of a middle state; neither particularly good nor bad; passable, mediocre; not inclined to one side or choice more than another.
The gap between common and legal meaning is significant. In ordinary English, indifferent carries a negative connotation — suggesting disengagement, apathy, or mediocrity. In law, indifferent is an affirmative qualification. A juror described as indifferent is not a disengaged one but a properly qualified one: actively neutral, open to the evidence, and free from bias. Researchers encountering the term in historical pleadings or jury challenges should read it as a term of approval, not criticism.
Common Confusion
Indifferent is sometimes confused with disqualified or incompetent in the context of jury challenges, but the terms operate in opposite directions. A juror who is indifferent is qualified to serve; a juror found not indifferent is subject to challenge. The confusion arises because modern usage of "indifferent" sounds like a deficiency, while historically it named the required condition. Separately, do not confuse the legal standard of indifference with the criminal law concept of depraved indifference, which applies to a specific mental state in homicide doctrine and carries an entirely different doctrinal framework.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working with pre-twentieth century trial records, jury challenge pleadings, and arbitration materials will encounter indifferent used as a term of legal qualification rather than a descriptive adjective. This matters in several ways:
First, historical challenges to jurors were framed as allegations that the juror was not indifferent — meaning biased or interested — and the resolution of such challenges turned on whether indifference could be established or rebutted. Understanding this framing is essential to reading challenge records accurately.
Second, the term appears in appraisal and valuation contexts in equity and execution proceedings. An "indifferent appraiser" is not a mediocre one but a neutral one, appointed precisely because of the absence of a stake in the outcome.
Third, the term bridges into modern constitutional doctrine on impartial juries without using modern vocabulary. Researchers tracing the development of impartiality requirements from common law through constitutional adjudication will find indifferent as the operative historical term — not impartial, not neutral — in the early sources.
Fourth, the term's appearance in arbitration clauses and submission agreements in historical commercial records should be read as a structural requirement for the arbitral panel, not a comment on the arbitrators' engagement or quality.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries are in close agreement on the core definition: impartial, unbiased, disinterested. Black's (both editions), Burrill, and Rapalje & Lawrence are essentially uniform. Anderson's provides the most useful elaboration, specifying that for a juror, indifference means the mind is uncommitted, prepared to weigh evidence without bias for or against either party — a formulation that anticipates modern voir dire standards. Bouvier adds the practical consequence: jurors, arbitrators, and witnesses who are not indifferent may be challenged.
The second edition of Black's anchors the definition to specific authority, citing People v. Vermilyea and Fox v. Hills — both early nineteenth-century decisions — which confirms that the legal meaning was well-established before any statutory codification of jury qualification standards.
What the historical dictionaries do not address is the later doctrinal migration of indifference into criminal law through the depraved indifference standard. That usage is entirely absent from these sources, which treat indifferent exclusively as a qualification term. Researchers should not read the criminal law meaning back into historical dictionary entries.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Homicide — Depraved Heart / Depraved Indifference Murder (The Law Mind Criminal Law Encyclopedia). Note: that entry addresses a distinct and later doctrinal development in which indifference names a culpable mental state, not a qualification for service. The two usages share a word but not a lineage.