Definition
Species facti is a Latin phrase used in Scots law meaning the particular criminal act charged against an accused person — that is, the specific nature or character of the offence as alleged. It identifies not merely the category of crime but the precise act said to have been committed, distinguishing it from related or lesser offences that might arise from the same facts.
The term functions as a term of art in Scots criminal procedure, directing attention to the exact quality of the act charged. A question about the species facti asks: what, precisely, is this person accused of doing, and does that conduct constitute the crime as libelled?
Common Confusion
Species facti should not be confused with the general Latin term species (meaning kind or form) used in Roman law and civilian property doctrine — as in the rule that a new species created from another's materials may or may not belong to the creator. The property-law species question is entirely distinct from the Scots criminal-procedure meaning. Researchers moving between civilian property sources and Scots criminal sources should note the shift in context immediately.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers encountering species facti in historical Scots legal sources should understand that the term does real work in criminal pleading — it is not merely decorative Latin. Disputes over the species facti arose when a prosecutor charged one offence (say, robbery) but the proven facts might support only a lesser or different charge. Whether the species facti was sufficiently established went to the heart of conviction or acquittal.
The term appears almost exclusively in Scots law sources. English common law sources do not use it, and American legal texts treat it as a foreign borrowing applicable only in the Scots context. Researchers working in comparative criminal law or in the history of Scots procedure will find it in session papers, Faculty of Advocates materials, and reported decisions of the Court of Justiciary. It does not appear in English or American pleading doctrine under this name.
The phrase is unlikely to appear in modern legal databases with frequency; researchers should watch for it in digitized historical Scots reports and should not expect American or English treatises to define or apply it. Burrill's single illustrative quotation — drawn from Brown's Reports — is the most useful anchor for tracing usage in historical case law.
Historical Dictionary Support
Black's, Rapalje & Lawrence, and Burrill's converge on a single, consistent definition: the particular criminal act charged against an accused person. There is no divergence among the three sources on meaning. The sources agree that the term belongs to Scots law and carry no suggestion that it had purchase in English or American jurisprudence.
Burrill adds the most useful detail by supplying an illustrative quotation: "The species facti amounted to robbery." 2 Brown's Reports 446. This signals that the term was used by courts to characterize the quality of a proven act — whether, on the facts established, the species facti rose to the level of the crime charged. This is the closest these dictionary sources come to showing the term in procedural operation.
None of the three sources situates the term within broader Scots criminal procedure doctrine or explains its relationship to the libel (the formal charge document in Scots law). Researchers needing that context should look beyond these dictionaries to Hume's Commentaries on the Law of Scotland Respecting Crimes or Alison's Principles and Practice of the Criminal Law of Scotland, both of which address criminal pleading with the depth these dictionary entries do not provide.