Civil Death
A Dictionary of Law · Henry Campbell Black · 1891
A Dictionary of Law
That cinge in a person’s legal and civil condition which deprives him of civic rights and juridical capacities and qualifications, as natural death extinguishes his natural condition. It follows as a consequence of being attainted of treason or felony, in English law, and anciently of entering a monastery or abjuring the realm. The person in this condition is said to be civéliter mortuus, civilly dead, or dead in law.