Your Free Online Legal Dictionary • Featuring Black’s Law Dictionary, 2nd Ed.

Category: S

SLOUGH

An arm of a river, flowing between islands and the main-land, and sep- arating the islands from one another. Sloughs have not the breadth of the main river, nor does the main

SOC, SOK, or SOKA

In Saxon law. Jurisdiction ; a power or privilege to administer justice and execute the laws; also a shire, circuit, or territory. Cowell.

SODOMY

In criminal law. The crime of unnatural sexual connection; so named from its prevalence in Sodom. See Genesis, xix. This term is often defined in statutes and judicial decisions as meaning “the

SOLIDARY

A term of civil-law origin, signifying that the right or interest spoken of is joint or common. A “solidary obligation” corresponds to a “joint and several” obligation iu the common law; that

SOMNAMBULISM

Sleep-walking. Whether this condition is anything more than a co- operation of the voluntary muscles with the thoughts which occupy the mind during sleep is not settled by physiologists. Wharton.

SOUND, v

To have reference or relation to; to aim at. An action is technically said to sound in damages where it is brought not for the specific recovery of a thing, but for

SPADONES

Lat In the civil law. Impotent persons. Those who, on account of their temperament or some accident they have suffered, are unable to procreate. Inst. 1, 11, 9; Dig. 1, 7, 2,

SPEEDY TRIAL

In criminal law. As secured by constitutional guaranties, a speedy trial means a trial conducted according to fixed rules, regulations, and proceedings of law, free from vexatious, capricious, and oppressive delays manufactured

SPONDES? SPONDEO

Lat. Do you undertake? I do undertake. The most common form of verbal stipulation in the Roman law. Inst 3, 16, 1. Spondet peritiam artis. He promises the skill of his art;

SQUATTER

In American law. One who settles on another’s land, particularly on public lands, without a title. See O’Donnell v. Mclntyre, 16 Abb. N. C. (N. Y.) 84; Park- ersburg Industrial Co. v.

STANDARD OF WEIGHT, or MEASURE

A weight or measure fixed and prescribed by law, to which all other weights and measures are required to correspond. STANNARIES 1105 STATE

STATIM

Lat. Forthwith; immediately. In old English law, this term meant either “at once,” or “within a legal time,” i. e., such time as permitted the legal and regular performance of the act

STET PROCESSUS

rence In the accounts of monastic establishments. Spelman; Cowell.

STET BILL A

If the plaintiff in a plalut in the mayor’s court of London has attached property belonging to the defendant and obtained execution against the garnishee, the defendant, if he wishes to contest

STRAMINEUS HOMO

L. Lat. A man of straw, oue of no substance, put forward as bail or surety.

STRICTISSIMI JURIS

Lat. Of the strictest right or law. “Licenses beiug matter of special indulgence, the application of them was formerly strictissimi juris.” 1 Edw. Adm. 328.

STUPRUM

Lat. In the civil law. Unlawful intercourse with a woman. Distinguished from adultery as being committed with a virgin or widow. Dig. 48, 5, 6.

SUBINFEUDATION

The system which the feudal tenants introduced of granting smaller estates out of those which they held of their lord, to be held of themselves as inferior lords. As this system was

SUBROGATION

The substitution of one thing for another, or of one person into the place of another with respect to rights, claims, or securities. Subrogation denotes the putting a third person who has

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