Definition
In legal usage, to throw out means to reject or refuse to approve a bill of indictment, effectively terminating a criminal prosecution at the grand jury stage. When a grand jury throws out a bill, it declines to find probable cause and returns the indictment as "ignored," preventing the case from proceeding to trial. The term applies to the formal act of rejection by a grand jury, not merely to dismissal by a court.
More broadly, and especially in modern usage, courts and practitioners also use "throw out" informally to describe any judicial dismissal or rejection of a pleading, motion, or action—though this usage is colloquial rather than technical.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): Alternative form of "throw-out"; to discard or eject something.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): To reject; to expel; to discard; to emit.
The gap here is meaningful in one direction: the common meaning of discarding or ejecting something is directionally consistent with the legal meaning, but far too general to capture the specific procedural significance. In law, "throw out" historically referred to a precise grand jury action—ignoring a bill of indictment—with formal legal consequences, not merely a general rejection. A researcher reading "thrown out" in a historical criminal law source should not assume the casual modern sense; the term may signal a specific grand jury return.
Common Confusion
"Throw out" is sometimes used interchangeably with dismissal, nolle prosequi, or acquittal, but these are distinct. A bill thrown out by a grand jury means probable cause was not found and the indictment was never returned—no charge formally issued. A dismissal occurs after a charge is filed. A nolle prosequi is a prosecutorial decision to abandon a charge already entered. An acquittal follows a trial. Historical sources, particularly 19th-century reports, may use "thrown out" loosely, so researchers should examine context carefully before concluding which procedural event is described.
Why It Matters in Research
This term has narrow technical meaning in historical sources and broader colloquial use in modern sources—a reversal of the usual pattern. In 19th-century legal dictionaries and court records, "throw out" almost always refers specifically to the grand jury's action of ignoring a bill of indictment. Researchers working with historical criminal records, especially pre-20th-century indictment dockets, should recognize this as a term of art identifying the outcome of grand jury proceedings, not a court-level dismissal.
In modern legal journalism, appellate opinions, and even some judicial opinions, "thrown out" is used loosely to mean dismissed at any stage. This inconsistency creates a research trap: the same phrase may describe fundamentally different procedural events depending on the era and source type. When working across historical and modern materials on the same case or legal question, verify which actor (grand jury vs. court) and which stage (pre-indictment vs. post-filing) is meant.
The Rapalje & Lawrence entry is notable for pairing the definition with a cross-reference to "THRUSH" and a horse law treatise citation—a quirk of 19th-century dictionary organization that illustrates alphabetical proximity, not conceptual connection. Researchers using that source should not infer any relationship between the entries.
No meaningful jurisdictional variation exists for the core historical meaning; grand jury practice was broadly uniform in its terminology across American jurisdictions in the 19th century, though grand jury use itself has since diverged significantly by state.
Historical Dictionary Support
All three historical sources agree precisely: to throw out a bill of indictment means to ignore it. Black's (1st and 2nd editions) give identical short definitions with no elaboration. Rapalje & Lawrence match exactly. The uniformity across these sources confirms this was settled, uncontroversial terminology in 19th-century practice—a one-line entry because there was nothing to dispute.
What the historical dictionaries do not address is the term's migration into general judicial usage. None of the historical sources anticipate the modern colloquial sense of courts "throwing out" motions or complaints. Researchers should not read that broader meaning back into historical entries.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
No Law Mind Encyclopedia entry directly addresses grand jury practice or indictment procedure. The matched entries (tax phase-outs; freeze-out mergers) share only superficial lexical similarity and are not relevant to this term's legal meaning.