Definition
A Latin writ directing the transfer of a person held in custody in one county to the county or jurisdiction where the offense with which he is charged was actually committed, so that trial may proceed in the proper venue. The phrase translates roughly as "to be delivered and received." The writ operates as a mechanism of venue correction: where a defendant has been arrested and detained in a county other than the one in which the alleged crime occurred, this writ compels the jailer or custodian to deliver the prisoner to the appropriate jurisdiction for trial.
The writ functions as a subspecies of habeas corpus procedure, directed not toward releasing the prisoner but toward relocating him to the forum of proper jurisdiction. It has been applied in practice to remove persons held for contempt in one county to stand trial for perjury in a different county.
Why It Matters in Research
This term appears rarely outside of older English and early American criminal practice sources. Researchers encountering it in historical records should recognize that it signals a venue dispute or a jurisdictional irregularity in the custody of a criminal defendant—circumstances that may illuminate broader procedural posture in historical cases.
The writ is a reminder that habeas corpus in its historical form was not a single instrument but a family of related writs, each tailored to a specific procedural need. Researchers working in pre-modern criminal law sources should not conflate randum et recipiendum with the more familiar habeas corpus ad subjiciendum (the liberty-protecting writ) or with habeas corpus ad prosequendum (used to bring a prisoner before a court for prosecution). Each served a distinct function, and misidentification in secondary literature is common.
Because this writ appears primarily in English sources predating the consolidation of habeas corpus procedure, its presence in American records is limited largely to early colonial and early republic practice. Researchers searching Law Mind corpus materials should expect to find it cited in treatises and form books rather than in reported decisions. It largely fell into disuse as modern venue transfer statutes and consolidated habeas corpus procedure made the distinct writ unnecessary.
The Bacon and Chitty citations in Black's are instructive for sourcing: Bacon's Abridgment under "Habeas Corpus" and Chitty's Criminal Law (1st edition) at volume 1, page 132 are the primary authoritative references. The 1 Tyrwhitt citation (a report of English Exchequer cases) documents the contempt-to-perjury application. Researchers should consult these sources directly for procedural detail, as Black's entry is brief and derived entirely from these English authorities.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary provides the only dictionary treatment of this term among standard American legal reference works, and its entry is spare—essentially a definition, two citations, and one application example. The entry does not indicate any American statutory or case law basis; the writ as described is entirely a creature of English common law practice.
The Bacon's Abridgment and Chitty citations confirm that the writ was recognized in English practice as part of the habeas corpus family and was distinct from other removal mechanisms. The Tyrwhitt example—removing a contempt prisoner to face perjury charges in another county—suggests the writ was flexible enough to serve cross-county transfer needs where the custodial and trial jurisdictions diverged for any reason, not only because of initial arrest in the wrong location.
No American equivalent statutory provision is identified in the historical sources, and modern procedural rules governing venue transfer and detainer agreements have entirely supplanted the functional role this writ once performed. Historical dictionaries other than Black's do not appear to have carried independent entries for this term, suggesting it was already a term of art of limited circulation even during the period when Black's first catalogued it.
Jurisdictional Note
This writ is exclusively a historical English common law instrument. No American jurisdiction has carried it forward in statutory form, and it has no modern procedural counterpart by this name. Researchers should treat any reference to it in American sources as a citation to inherited English practice, not to domestically enacted procedure.