Definition
Pannellation is the formal act of impaneling a jury — that is, the procedural process by which a jury is selected, summoned, and constituted for service in a legal proceeding. The term encompasses the full sequence of steps through which a panel of jurors is drawn from the venire, examined, and sworn in, resulting in a properly constituted jury ready to hear a case.
Why It Matters in Research
Pannellation is a term researchers are more likely to encounter in older procedural treatises and historical court records than in modern legal sources, where "impaneling" or "empaneling" has almost entirely displaced it. When searching historical primary sources — particularly English common law records, early American court documents, or nineteenth-century procedural manuals — pannellation may appear where a modern researcher would expect to find "jury selection" or "impanelment."
The Rapalje & Lawrence entry illustrates a characteristic hazard of historical legal dictionaries: the entry for pannellation is immediately followed by unrelated material (Crown Paper-days in the Queen's Bench and a note on PANNUS from Fleta) with no clear typographical separation. Researchers working from digitized or transcribed versions of Rapalje & Lawrence should be alert to this formatting artifact, which can cause the pannellation definition to appear conflated with surrounding entries.
For corpus researchers, the variant spelling "impannellation" occasionally appears in older English sources and should be included in search strings alongside "impaneling," "impanelling," "empaneling," and "empanelling." Spelling variation is substantial across historical sources on both sides of the Atlantic.
The procedural mechanics behind pannellation — including the role of the sheriff in returning the panel, challenges for cause, and peremptory challenges — are treated extensively in early procedural treatises such as Chitty's Practice, referenced obliquely in the Rapalje & Lawrence entry. Researchers tracing the history of jury selection procedure will find pannellation a useful entry point into that literature.
Historical Dictionary Support
The three source dictionaries are in complete agreement on the core definition: pannellation is the act of impaneling a jury. Black's (1st and 2nd editions) are nearly identical, offering brief, functional definitions without elaboration. Rapalje & Lawrence matches this substance, though the entry is typographically compromised by immediately adjacent unrelated matter.
None of the source dictionaries expand on the procedural steps that constitute pannellation, the historical role of the sheriff or court officer in executing it, or distinctions between civil and criminal jury impanelment. For substantive procedural content, researchers must look beyond these dictionary definitions to period treatises. The Rapalje & Lawrence cross-reference to Chitty's Archbold's Practice (12th ed., p. 177) — appearing in the adjacent Crown Paper-days material, not in the pannellation entry itself — points toward the kind of procedural authority that would elaborate the practice, though the connection is incidental to the definition.
Historical dictionaries do not flag any doctrinal controversy or significant evolution in the meaning of pannellation. The term appears to have been stable in meaning but declining in use through the nineteenth century, yielding to "impanelment" as the dominant form.