Definition
To sequester is to separate, isolate, or set apart — a broad action whose legal meaning shifts significantly depending on context. The term operates across at least three distinct legal domains, each with its own procedural mechanics and consequences.
1. Jury sequestration. A court order isolating jurors from outside contact during trial or deliberations. Sequestered jurors are housed together under supervision, separated from family, media, and other external influences that could compromise impartial decision-making. This is the most common modern usage in American legal proceedings.
2. Property sequestration. The judicial or executive act of taking property from the possessing party and holding it in the custody of the court, a neutral third party, or the state, pending resolution of a dispute, satisfaction of a debt, or compliance with a court order. Unlike forfeiture, which permanently transfers title, sequestration is ordinarily provisional — the property is held until a condition is met or a proceeding concludes. In contempt proceedings, a party may have property sequestered until they purge the contempt.
3. International and wartime sequestration. The seizure of private property belonging to enemy nationals or citizens of a hostile power during armed conflict. In this sense, sequestration approaches confiscation and may result in permanent appropriation to public use. Distinguished from ordinary civil sequestration by its political rather than judicial character.
A narrower historical usage: in English ecclesiastical practice, to sequester a vacant benefice was to gather and manage its revenues for the benefit of the incoming incumbent — an administrative, not punitive, act.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To separate from all external influence; to seclude or withdraw. Also used in chemistry to describe isolating an ion in solution by forming a coordination compound, and in environmental science to describe capturing and storing carbon.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To separate from the owner for a time; to take from parties in controversy and put into the possession of an indifferent person; to seize or take possession of property and hold it until profits satisfy a demand or the owner complies with a court order; in international law, to confiscate.
The common and legal senses share the core idea of enforced separation, but common usage treats sequestration as essentially neutral — a matter of storage or isolation. Legal usage is rarely neutral: sequestration almost always implies compulsion, judicial authority, or contested ownership. A researcher encountering "sequester" in a non-legal text should not assume that the coercive, court-supervised dimensions are present.
Common Confusion
Sequestration is frequently confused with confiscation and forfeiture, but the distinctions matter for research. Confiscation and forfeiture permanently transfer ownership — the original owner loses title. Sequestration is ordinarily temporary: property is held, managed, and returned once the triggering condition resolves. In international law contexts, however, the line blurs — wartime sequestration has historically shaded into permanent appropriation, making source-specific reading essential.
Sequestration is also sometimes conflated with attachment and garnishment in debt-collection contexts. These are distinct remedies with different procedural prerequisites; using "sequestration" and "attachment" interchangeably in historical sources may or may not reflect genuine equivalence depending on jurisdiction and period.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
Jury sequestration: Isolation of the jury during trial or deliberations to prevent outside influence.
Civil sequestration: Court-ordered custody of disputed property pending judgment; also used as a coercive mechanism in contempt proceedings.
Sequestration of a benefice: Historical ecclesiastical practice of managing revenues of a vacant church living for the benefit of the next incumbent.
International/belligerent sequestration: State seizure of enemy private property during war or hostilities, which may be permanent in effect.
Budgetary sequestration: A modern statutory usage, most prominent in U.S. federal fiscal law, referring to automatic, across-the-board spending cuts triggered by failure to meet deficit targets. This usage is entirely distinct from the judicial and international law meanings and is not addressed in historical dictionaries.
Why It Matters in Research
The multi-domain nature of "sequester" is the primary research trap. A term that appears in a criminal procedure context (jury isolation), a civil enforcement context (property custody), an ecclesiastical context (benefice management), and an international law context (enemy property seizure) will not carry the same procedural or doctrinal freight across those domains. Reading a historical case about sequestration without first identifying which domain applies risks fundamental misunderstanding of what the court was doing.
Historical sources are inconsistent in their treatment. Bouvier's emphasizes the civil and ecclesiastical renunciation sense — a widow who sequesters disclaims an estate. Burrill's focuses on the sequester as a neutral custodian: a person, not an act. Black's addresses the act itself across multiple domains. A researcher relying on only one historical dictionary for this term will get a partial and potentially misleading picture.
The budgetary sequestration usage — prominent in U.S. federal law since the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings Act of 1985 and the Budget Control Act of 2011 — appears nowhere in historical dictionaries. Researchers working on modern federal fiscal materials must treat this as a distinct term of art with statutory rather than common-law roots.
Jurisdictional variation in civil sequestration procedure is significant. Louisiana, with its civil law heritage, has a formally structured sequestration remedy under the Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure that differs substantially from equitable sequestration doctrines in common-law states. International law sources use the term with still different technical content.
Historical Dictionary Support
The three shelf sources approach the term from different angles and do not fully agree on its primary meaning, which itself is informative.
Burrill's treats "sequester" first as a noun — the neutral custodian in a civil law deposit arrangement, derived from the Latin sequi (to follow), indicating a person who accompanies or meets the contending parties. This civilian-law origin is the conceptual foundation of the term: a neutral third party holding disputed property. It is the most historically grounded account.
Black's, characteristically, leads with procedural function across multiple contexts — contempt enforcement, ecclesiastical management, and international confiscation — without privileging any single meaning. Black's international law entry is notably expansive, treating sequestration as essentially synonymous with confiscation when applied to enemy property, a conflation that Burrill's would resist.
Bouvier's offers the most unusual angle: the widow who sequesters is one who renounces — she disclaims rather than deposits. This usage, drawn from Jacob's Law Dictionary, reflects an older civil and ecclesiastical sense that has largely disappeared from modern legal practice. Bouvier's entry is a reminder that historical sources sometimes preserve meanings that survive only in archaic procedural contexts.
What historical dictionaries collectively miss: jury sequestration as a formal, frequently litigated procedural mechanism receives little to no treatment. The modern emphasis on jury isolation as a constitutional and due process concern postdates these sources. Budgetary sequestration is entirely absent. Researchers working in either area will find the historical dictionaries unhelpful and should move directly to statutory and procedural sources.
Jurisdictional Note
Civil sequestration procedure varies materially between common-law and civil-law jurisdictions. Louisiana's sequestration remedy is codified and carries specific procedural requirements distinct from the equitable doctrines governing sequestration in other states. In international law, the treatment of belligerent sequestration — whether it is temporary or effectively permanent — has varied by treaty, conflict, and domestic implementing legislation.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia — Sequestration (for civil and property dimensions); Jury Management (for jury sequestration procedure); Property Seizure and Forfeiture (for relationship to confiscation and forfeiture doctrines).