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

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

SPELLING

The formation of words by letters; orthography. Incorrect spelling does not vitiate a written instrument If the intention clearly appears.

SPENDTHRIFT

A person who by excessive drinking, gaming, idleness, or de- bauchery of any kind shall so spend, waste, or lessen his estate as to expose himself or his family to want or

SPERATE

That of which there is hope. Thus a debt which one may hope to recover may be called “sperate,” in opposition to “desperate.” See 1 Chit. Pr. 520.

SPES RECUPERANDI

Lat. The hope of recovery or recapture; the chance of retaking property captured at sea, which prevents the captors from acquiring complete ownership of the property until they have definitely precluded it

SPINSTER

The addition given, in legal proceedings, and in conveyancing, to a wo- man who never has been married.

SPIRITUALITIES OF A BISHOP

Those profits which a bishop receives in his ecclesiastical character, as the dues arising from his ordaining and instituting priests, and such like, in contradistinction to those profits which he acquires in

SPIRITUOUS LIQUORS

These are inflammable liquids produced by distillation, and forming an article of commerce. See Rlankenship v. State, 93 Ga. 814, 21 S. E. 130; State v. Munger, 15 Vt. 293; Allred v.

SPLITTING A CAUSE OF ACTION

Dividing a single cause of action, claim, or demand into two or more parts, and bringing suit for one of such parts only, intending to reserve the rest for a separate action.

SPOLIATION

In English ecclesiastical law. An injury done by one clerk or incumbent to another, in taking the fruits of his benefice without any right to them, but under a pretended title. 3

SPOLIATOR

Lat. A spoiler or destroyer. It is a maxim of law, bearing chiefly on evidence, but also upon the value generally of the thing destroyed, that everything most to his disadvantage is

SPOLIUM

Lat. In the civil and common law. A thing violently or unlawfully taken from another.

SPONDEO

Lat. In the civil law. I undertake; I engage. Inst. 3, 16, 1.

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;

SPONSIO

Lat In the civil law. An engagement or undertaking; particularly such as was made in the form of an answer to a formal interrogatory by the other party. Calvin. An engagement to

SPONSIONS

In international law. Agreements or engagements made by certain public officers (as generals or admirals in time of war) in behalf of their governments, either without authority or in excess of the

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