PACK - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

PACKAuthored

The Law Mind • 1084 words

Definition

In legal usage, to pack means to manipulate or corrupt a process — most commonly jury selection — through improper, deceitful, or unlawful means designed to produce a predetermined outcome. The term describes deliberate fraud in the composition of a decision-making body rather than in the substance of evidence or argument.

To pack a jury is to engineer the jury panel so that it contains persons already favorably disposed to one party, or persons susceptible to improper influence, in order to secure a desired verdict. The wrong lies in the selection process itself: the jury may be duly sworn and impaneled and yet be packed if its composition was the product of corrupt contrivance.

Bouvier extends the concept more broadly — to deceive by false appearances or to delude generally — suggesting the term once carried a wider sense of fraudulent manipulation beyond jury selection. In practice, however, legal usage has converged almost entirely on the jury context.

Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A bundle prepared for carrying; a load; a multitude; a set of playing cards; a group of animals hunting or traveling together.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To make a pack of; to arrange closely and securely; to press into close order; to fill compactly, as goods in a box.

The common meaning is entirely neutral — arranging things together efficiently. The legal meaning inverts this: to pack is to arrange persons together corruptly. A researcher encountering "pack" in a legal source should not carry any connotation of orderly organization; the legal term signals fraud in composition, not efficiency in arrangement.

Common Confusion

Packing should not be confused with tampering. Jury tampering typically refers to improper contact with jurors after they have been selected — bribing or threatening sitting jurors to influence deliberations. Packing operates at the earlier stage of selection and impanelment: the corruption occurs before the jury is seated and sworn in a clean posture. Both are serious offenses against the administration of justice, but they attack different points in the process. Historical sources sometimes use the terms loosely; researchers should note at which stage the alleged misconduct occurred.

Packing should also be distinguished from jury fixing, which in modern usage often describes bribery of a sitting juror, and from jury rigging, a colloquial term that may refer to either stage. Historical sources are inconsistent on these distinctions.

Why It Matters in Research

This term appears almost exclusively in older legal materials. Modern practice addresses the underlying conduct through constitutional doctrine — the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendment fair cross-section and equal protection requirements, Batson challenges, and statutory jury selection procedures — rather than through the term "pack" or "packing." A researcher encountering the term in nineteenth- or early twentieth-century case law, treatises, or procedural materials should understand it as the period's label for what modern law addresses under different doctrinal headings.

The term is historically significant in contexts involving systematic exclusion of jurors by race, class, or political affiliation, where the machinery of official jury selection was itself corrupted to produce panels favorable to particular parties or the state. Researchers working on civil rights history, Reconstruction-era legal materials, or the history of jury discrimination will encounter this term as a live accusation in contemporaneous sources.

Bouvier's broader definition — to deceive by false appearances generally — appears in older equity and fraud materials. If the term appears outside a jury selection context in pre-twentieth-century sources, Bouvier's usage may supply the relevant meaning.

The term "court-packing" entered American political and constitutional discourse prominently in 1937 in connection with President Franklin Roosevelt's proposal to expand the Supreme Court. That usage is derivative: it applies the same logic (manipulating the composition of a decision-making body to ensure a favorable outcome) to an appellate court through legislative means. Researchers working on constitutional history or separation of powers should be aware that this is a political and journalistic use of the term, not a term of art in the law of jury selection.

Historical Dictionary Support

The historical dictionaries are in close agreement on the core meaning. Black's (both editions) and Rapalje & Lawrence emphasize the same elements: improper or deceitful means, applied to jury selection, to produce a panel predisposed to one party. Anderson's is the most compressed, defining the term as improper and corrupt selection of a sworn and impaneled jury. All four treat the jury context as the definitive legal usage.

Bouvier stands apart. His definition — to deceive by false appearances; to counterfeit; to delude — does not mention juries at all and describes a more general concept of fraudulent manipulation. This may reflect an earlier or broader common law usage that the other dictionaries had already narrowed by their publication dates. Bouvier's definition is useful when the term appears in non-jury contexts in equity or fraud pleadings but should not be assumed to govern jury-related passages where the Black's and Rapalje formulations are more directly on point.

None of the historical dictionaries address the constitutional dimensions that now govern the same underlying conduct. They predate or do not engage with equal protection doctrine as applied to jury selection, which means historical dictionary entries alone are insufficient guides to how modern law has absorbed and restructured the same concerns.

Jurisdictional Note

The underlying conduct was recognized as a wrong at common law across jurisdictions, but the modern doctrinal framework governing jury selection integrity is primarily federal constitutional law. State procedures vary significantly in how jury venires are assembled and challenged, which means the historical term "pack" maps onto different procedural remedies depending on jurisdiction and era.

Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Jury Selection; Jury Tampering and Obstruction of Justice; Court-Packing (Constitutional History)

PACKmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

To put together in sorts with a fraudulent design. To pack a jury is to use unlawful, improper, or deceitful means to have the jury made up of persons favorably disposed to the party so contriving, or who have been or can be improperly influenced to | give the verdict he seeks. The term imports the improper and corrupt selection of a jury sworn and impaneled for the trial of a cause. 12 Conn. 289.

PACKmain

Black's Law Dictionary (2nd Ed.) • 1910

To put together in sorts with a fraudulent design. To pack a jury is to use unlawful, improper, or deceitful means to have the jury made up of persons favorably disposed to the party so contriving, or who have been or can be improperly influenced to give the verdict he seeks. The term imports the improper and corrupt selection of a jury

PACKmain

Rapalje & Lawrence • 1883

To pack a jury is, by contrivance and improper influence, to secure upon the panel jurors predisposed to find in favor of a particular party.

PACKv.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

To make a pack of; to arrange closely and securely in a pack; hence, to place and arrange compactly as in a pack; to press into close order or narrow compass; as to pack goods in a box; to pack fish. Strange materials packed up with wonderful art. Addison. Where . . . the bones Of all my buried ancestors are packed. Shak. To fill in the manner of a pack, that is, compactly and securely, as for transportation; hence, to fill closely or to repletion; to stow away within; to cause to be full; to crowd into; as, to pack a trunk; the play, or the audience, packs the theater. To sort and arrange (the cards) in a pack so as to secure the game unfairly. And mighty dukes pack cards for half a crown. Pope. Hence: To bring together or make up unfairly and fraudulently, in order to secure a certain result; as, to pack a jury or a causes. The expected council was dwindling into . . . a packed assembly of Italian bishops. Atterbury. To contrive unfairly or fraudulently; to plot. [Obs.] He lost life . . . upon a nice point subtilely devised and packed by his enemies. Fuller. To load with a pack; hence, to load; to encumber; as, to pack a horse. Our thighs packed with wax, our mouths with honey. Shack. To cause to go; to send away with baggage or belongings; esp., to send away peremptorily or suddenly; -- sometimes with off; as, to pack a boy off to school. He . . . must not die Till George be packed with post horse up to heaven. Shak. To transport in a pack, or in the manner of a pack (i. e., on the backs of men or beasts). [Western U.S.] To envelop in a wet or dry sheet, within numerous coverings. See Pack, n., 5. To render impervious, as by filling or surrounding with suitable material, or to fit or adjust so as to move without giving passage to air, water, or steam; as, to pack a joint; to pack the piston of a steam engine.

PACKv.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

To make up packs, bales, or bundles; to stow articles securely for transportation. To admit of stowage, or of making up for transportation or storage; to become compressed or to settle together, so as to form a compact mass; as, the goods pack conveniently; wet snow packs well. To gather in flocks or schools; as, the grouse or the perch begin to pack. [Eng.] To depart in haste; -- generally with off or away. Poor Stella must pack off to town Swift. You shall pack, And never more darken my doors again. Tennyson. To unite in bad measures; to confederate for ill purposes; to join in collusion. [Obs.] "Go pack with him." Shak. To send packing, to drive away; to send off roughly or in disgrace; to dismiss unceremoniously. "The parliament . . . presently sent him packing. South.

packnoun

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.

A bundle made up and prepared to be carried; especially, a bundle to be carried on the back, but also a load for an animal, a bale. | A number or quantity equal to the contents of a pack | A multitude. | A number or quantity of connected or similar things; a collective. | A full set of playing cards | The assortment of playing cards used in a particular game. | A group of hounds or dogs, hunting or kept together. | A wolfpack: a number of wolves, hunting together. | A flock of knots. | A group of people associated or leagued in a bad design or practice; a gang. | A group of Cub Scouts. | A shook of cask staves. | A bundle of sheet iron plates for rolling simultaneously. | A large area of floating pieces of ice driven together more or less closely. | An envelope, or wrapping, of sheets used in hydropathic practice, called dry pack, wet pack, cold pack, etc., according to the method of treatment. | A loose, lewd, or worthless person. | A tight group of object balls in cue sports. Usually the reds in snooker. | The forwards in a rugby team (eight in Rugby Union, six in Rugby League) who with the opposing pack constitute the scrum. | The largest group of blockers from both teams skating in close proximity. | A package of cigarettes.

packverb

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

To put or bring things together in a limited or confined space, especially for storage or transport. | To make a pack of; to arrange closely and securely in a pack; hence, to place and arrange compactly as in a pack | To put or bring things together in a limited or confined space, especially for storage or transport. | To fill in the manner of a pack, that is, compactly and securely, as for transportation; hence, to fill closely or to repletion; to stow away within; to cause to be full; to crowd into. | To put or bring things together in a limited or confined space, especially for storage or transport. | To wrap in a wet or dry sheet, within numerous coverings. | To put or bring things together in a limited or confined space, especially for storage or transport. | To make impervious, such as by filling or surrounding with suitable material, or to fit or adjust so as to move without allowing air, water, or steam inside. | To put or bring things together in a limited or confined space, especially for storage or transport. | To make up packs, bales, or bundles; to stow articles securely for transportation. | To put or bring things together in a limited or confined space, especially for storage or transport. | To form a compact mass, especially in order for transportation. | To put or bring things together in a limited or confined space, especially for storage or transport. | To gather together in flocks, herds, schools or similar groups of animals. | To put or bring things together in a limited or confined space, especially for storage or transport. | To combine (telegraph messages) in order to send them more cheaply as a single transmission. | To put or bring things together in a limited or confined space, especially for storage or transport. | To compress (data). | To cheat. | To sort and arrange (the cards) in the pack to give oneself an unfair advantage | To cheat. | To bring together or make up unfairly, in order to secure a certain result. | To cheat. | To contrive unfairly or fraudulently; to plot. | To cheat. | To put together for morally wrong purposes; to join in cahoots. | To load with a pack. | To load; to encumber. | To move, send or carry. | To cause to go; to send away with baggage or belongings; especially, to send away peremptorily or suddenly; – sometimes with off. See pack off. | To move, send or carry. | To transport in a pack, or in the manner of a pack (on the backs of men or animals). | To move, send or carry. | To depart in haste; – generally with off or away. | To move, send or carry. | To carry weapons, especially firearms, on one's person. | To move, send or carry. | To have a large penis, as if carrying a large weapon on one's person. | To move, send or carry. | To wear an object, such as a prosthetic penis, inside one’s trousers to appear more male or masculine. | To block a shot, especially in basketball. | To play together cohesively, specially with reference to technique in the scrum.

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