Warrant

1.

A general name for various judicial writings authorizing officers of the courts to make arrests, searches, or seizures, or do other like acts in aid of the administration of justice.

2.

There are also several evidences of debt or title, and negotiable instruments, known as warrants; as land-warrants, which authorize the holder to take up a tract of public lands; city, county, or town warrants, which call for payment of money out of the municipal treasuiy, to some creditor of the corporation; and dividend warrants, which are of the nature of a check by a joint-stock company upon its bankers, directing them to pay a sum of money specified therein to a shareholder entitled thereto in respect of a dividend, or to his order. Warrant of arrest. Warrants of arof serious crimes. On information being laid before a magistrate that any person has committed, or is suspected to have committed, any offence, the magistrate will, according to the circumstances of the case, issue a summons, to be sei Ted upon the defendant, citing him to appear, or will issue a warrant for his apprehension in the first instance. In most cases of serious offences, a warrant will be issued at once. In minor offences, especially those punishable on summaiy conviction, a warrant will not, by English practice, generally be issued, except against a party who has disobeyed a summons; but a justice may, if he think fit, issiie in the first instance a warrant for apprehending the defendant. Where an indictment has been • found against a person who is at large, a warrant may be issued for his apprehension. Warrant of attorney. An instrument in writing, addressed to an attorney-at-law, authorizing him, generally, to appear in any court, or in some specified court, on behalf of the person giving it, and to confess judgment in favor of some person therein named. This general authority usually recites a bond which accompanies it, or contains a defeasance, stating the terms upon which it was given, and restraining the creditor from making use of it, except on breach of the condition. The warrant (or bond and warrant) is commonly given to a creditor, as security, and enables him, on default of payment, to enter judgment without the delays of an action. It is the same in substance as the confession of judgment. In form it is, generally, by deed; but it seems it need not necessarily be so.

5 Taunt. 264.

This instrument is given to the creditor as a security. Warrant of commitment. A warrant of commitment is a written authority committing a person to custody.

— Such a warrant may be issued in various cases; as in pm-suance of a judicial sentence upon a conviction;

— for the purpose of securing the attendance of the party to take his trial for an indictable an adjourned hearing of the charge against him;

— for default in payment of a sum of money ordered to be paid, by way of fine or otherwise;

— for default in finding sureties to keep the peace; in default of sufficient property being found to satisfy a warrant of distress;

— or for contumacy, as in a witness refusing to answer questions properly put to him.

As to bench-warrant, general warrant, and search-warrant, see those titles. Warrant of Bcer. A class of officers in the navy, understood to be of inferior grade, but holding their office by written commission or warrant.