capias ad respondendum

1 definition found

capias ad respondendum - Bouvier's Law Dictionary, Revised 6th Ed (1856) :

  CAPIAS AD RESPONDENDUM, practice. A writ commanding the sheriff, or other 
  proper officer, to "take the body of the defendant and to keep the same to 
  answer, ad respondendum, the plaintiff in a plea," &c. The amount of bail 
  demanded ought to, be indorsed on the writ. 
       2. A defendant arrested upon this writ must be committed to prison, 
  unless he give a bail bond (q.v.) to the sheriff. In some states, (as, 
  until lately, in Pennsylvania,) it is the practice, when the defendant is 
  liable to this process, to indorse on the writ, No bail required in which 
  case he need only give the sheriff, in writing, an authority to the 
  prothonotary to enter his appearance to the action, to be discharged from 
  the arrest. If the writ has been served, and the defendant have not given 
  bail, but remains in custody, it is returned C. C., cepi corpus; if he have 
  given bail, it is returned C. C. B. B., cepi corpus, bail bond; if the 
  defendant's appearance have been accepted, the return is, "C. C. and 
  defendant's appearance accepted." According to the course of the practice at 
  common law, the writ bears teste, in the name of the chief justice, or 
  presiding judge of the court, on some day in term time, when the judge is 
  supposed to be present, not being Sunday, and is made returnable on a 
  regular return day. 1 Penna. Pr. 36; 1 Arch. Pr. 67.