Definition
Sus is a Latin/Law Latin abbreviation appearing in historical English criminal records. It is short for suspendatur per collum — "let him be hanged by the neck" — a judicial notation used in capital cases. When a judge signed the sheriff's calendar or list of prisoners following conviction at assizes, he wrote sus. per coll. (or the full abbreviation) in the margin opposite a condemned prisoner's name. That marginal notation functioned as the sheriff's warrant to carry out the execution. The term has no operative legal meaning in modern practice; its significance is entirely historical and archival.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): A synonym for Shush, a city in Khuzestan, Iran.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): No entry; the term had no common English meaning.
Editorial note: The common and legal meanings share nothing. The geographic reference is irrelevant to legal research. Researchers encountering sus. in historical English court documents or criminal calendars should treat it as the Latin abbreviation, not as a place name or any modern colloquial usage.
Common Confusion
Sus is sometimes encountered in older documents without its companion per coll., leaving the abbreviation ambiguous to modern readers. Read in isolation, sus. might be mistaken for a case status notation, a surname abbreviation, or a filing mark. It should always be read in conjunction with per coll. to confirm the capital judgment meaning. Separately, modern slang use of "sus" (meaning suspicious) is entirely unrelated and should not be imported into any reading of historical legal documents.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers working with English assize records, gaol calendars, Old Bailey session papers, or circuit court documents from the seventeenth through early nineteenth centuries will encounter sus. per coll. as a recurring marginal notation. Understanding it as the execution warrant — not merely a descriptive note — is important for correctly interpreting the procedural posture of a case. The notation confirms that judgment of death was formally recorded and directed to the sheriff; it is not a recommendation or a draft.
Because this notation appeared in the judge's own hand in the margin of an administrative list rather than in a formal written judgment, researchers should not expect to find it in enrolled plea rolls or formal court records. Gaol calendars and assize rolls are the primary sources. The Proceedings of the Old Bailey (available in digitized form) and county record office holdings of assize papers are the most productive corpora.
A further trap: the absence of sus. per coll. opposite a prisoner's name on a calendar does not necessarily mean acquittal. The calendar format varied by circuit and era, and judges used other abbreviations (such as D. for death, or notations of transportation, branding, or clergy) in the same marginal column. Sus. per coll. should be read as one element within a broader system of abbreviated calendar notations.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries are in close agreement on substance. Black's (both editions), Anderson's, and Burrill's all define sus. per coll. as an abbreviation of suspendatur per collum and identify it as a marginal notation written by the judge on the sheriff's criminal calendar opposite the name of a prisoner condemned to death. Burrill adds the Law French headword sus (meaning "upon" or "aforesaid," drawn from Kelham's glossary), which is a distinct term unrelated to the capital judgment abbreviation — a useful disambiguation that the other dictionaries omit.
Rapalje & Lawrence's entry is fragmentary as reproduced but confirms the same practice: the judge signed the calendar with separate judgments in the margin for each prisoner.
The reference to 4 Bl. Comm. 408 (Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England) appears in multiple entries and is the authoritative primary source for the practice. Blackstone describes the assize judge's signing of the calendar as the effective warrant for execution, explaining why no separate written death warrant was required at common law in the ordinary course.
What the historical dictionaries do not address: the precise period during which this practice was operative, how it interacted with benefit of clergy claims made after judgment, or how the notation was handled when a reprieve or royal pardon intervened. Researchers requiring that level of detail should consult Blackstone directly and relevant assize scholarship.
Jurisdictional Note
This practice was specific to England and Wales under the common law assize system. It did not transfer to American jurisdictions, where capital judgment procedures followed different documentary forms from the colonial period forward. Researchers working in Scottish, Irish, or colonial records should not assume the same notation system applies.