Definition
A writ directed to a sheriff commanding him to deliver his county — along with all writs, rolls, remembrances, and other records and appurtenances belonging to the office — to his successor. The writ functioned as the formal mechanism of transfer when a sheriff's tenure ended, ensuring continuity of the office and the integrity of official records passing between incumbents.
Why It Matters in Research
Randis is an obsolete writ of English common law origin that does not appear in modern American legal practice. Researchers encountering the term will find it almost exclusively in historical sources — colonial records, early American court documents, or treatises drawing on English practice. Its practical significance in historical research lies less in the writ itself than in what it signals: the formal accountability attached to the sheriff's office over custody of court records and process documents. A gap in the chain of custody for early county records — missing rolls, lost writs — may reflect a failed or disputed randis transfer. Researchers working on the administrative history of early American counties, or tracing the provenance of historical court records, should be aware that the writ imposed a structured handoff obligation on departing sheriffs that, when honored, left a documentary trail.
The term appears in no modern legal dictionaries of note and receives only the single entry in Bouvier. It does not appear to have generated significant American case law. Treat it as English common law vocabulary absorbed into early American practice but not independently developed here.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's is the sole shelf source with an entry. His definition is spare but precise: a mandate to the sheriff to deliver the county and its appurtenances — briefs, rolls, remembrances, and other office materials — to a successor. Bouvier does not elaborate on procedure, penalties for noncompliance, or the writ's English origins, and no other historical dictionary in the standard corpus (Black's, Burrill, Tomlin's) carries a dedicated entry. The absence from Black's is notable given that Black's first edition (1891) generally captured surviving common law writs still nominally available in American practice. The omission suggests randis had effectively passed out of practical use by the late nineteenth century, leaving Bouvier's mid-century entry as the primary American reference point. Researchers should not assume the writ's absence from later dictionaries means the concept disappeared — the underlying obligation of a departing officer to surrender records persisted, absorbed into statutory frameworks governing county officers rather than surviving as a discrete writ.
Jurisdictional Note
Randis was an English common law writ. Its reception in American jurisdictions was uneven and largely theoretical; the function it served was eventually codified in state statutes governing the duties of outgoing county officers. No American jurisdiction appears to retain the writ by name in current law.