Magistrate
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence · Benjamin Vaughan Abbott · 1879
Dictionary of Terms and Phrases Used in American or English Jurisprudence
A person intrusted with power as a civil officer; one vested with public civil authority; one charged with the execution of municipal laws. A person intrusted with the commission of the peace for any county, city, borough, or other jurisdiction.
Muzley J- W
Of magistrates, some are supreme, in whom the sovereign power of the state resides; others are subordinate, deriving all their authority from the supreme magistrate, accountable to him for their conduct, and acting in an inferior, secondary sphere.
Wharton.
An alderman of a city is a magistrate, within an enactment allowing deeds to be acknowledged before a magistrate.
Gordon V. Hobart, 2 Sumn. 401.
The word magistrate, in such a statute, includes an American consul at a foreign port. To fix any definite meaning to the word is difficult; it seems intended to indicate a class of officers exercising an authority similar to that of justices of the peace. It means any ministerial officer exercising like powers with a justice of the peace when acting in his ministerial capacity.
Scanlan V. Wright, 13 Pick. 523.