Definition
"If he make you secure." A Latin phrase identifying a specific class of original writ in the English common law system. The writ of si fecerit te securum directed the sheriff to compel the defendant's appearance in court without offering the defendant any option or alternative — provided the plaintiff first gave the sheriff security that the claim would be effectively prosecuted. The phrase served as both the opening words of the writ and the name by which this writ type was identified and distinguished from others.
The writ functioned as a compulsory process. Where other original writs gave the defendant a choice (such as the praecipe writs, which allowed appearance or surrender of the thing demanded), si fecerit te securum allowed no such election. The defendant was summoned; the sheriff's duty to compel appearance was conditioned only on the plaintiff's provision of security to prosecute, not on any response or concession from the defendant.
Why It Matters in Research
This term will appear in pre-nineteenth-century English common law materials — particularly in treatises, register of writs literature, and procedural texts — and almost never in American practice sources. Researchers encountering it should understand it as a technical designation within the taxonomy of original writs, not as a substantive legal doctrine.
The key navigational point: si fecerit te securum is a label for a writ form, not a rule of law. When it appears in a historical source, the researcher's next question should be what type of action the writ introduced and how it compared to the alternative writ forms available in the same period. Blackstone's Commentaries (Book III) and the Registrum Omnium Brevium (Reg. Orig.) are the primary corpus touchstones; Burrill specifically directs researchers to Reg. Orig. pages 30 and 72 and notes it appears throughout that register.
Because this writ belongs to the pre-modern English procedural system, it has no direct American counterpart. Researchers working in early American courts — particularly colonial or early republic materials that tracked English forms — may encounter it in pleading records, but it largely disappears from practice once American courts developed their own procedural codes and, eventually, merged law and equity under rules-based civil procedure.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's Law Dictionary (both editions) and Burrill's Law Dictionary are in complete agreement on substance: all three define the phrase identically and trace it to Blackstone's Commentaries Book III, page 274. Burrill adds the additional reference to the Registrum Omnium Brevium, which is useful for researchers wanting primary source access to the writ forms themselves.
None of the three sources contextualizes the writ within the broader taxonomy of original writs or explains how si fecerit te securum related to the praecipe class of writs or to the later development of process by summons, attachment, and capias. Blackstone's own treatment in Book III provides the necessary context that the dictionary entries assume but do not supply.
The historical dictionaries treat this as an entry worth preserving primarily for identification purposes — researchers encountering the Latin phrase in older texts would need to know what it named. That remains its primary dictionary function today.
Jurisdictional Note
Si fecerit te securum is an English common law writ form with no direct jurisdictional equivalent in American state or federal practice. Its relevance is historical and comparative. Researchers working in English legal history, early colonial practice, or the reception of English procedure into American courts will encounter it; practicing American lawyers will not.