Confiscate

[Lat. confiscatum, confiscata.] Confiscated; forfeited to the treasury or exchequer of the king or state; seized as forfeited. Termes de la ley.

Staundf.

Pl. Cor. lib.

3, c. 24. Cowell. 1 Bl. Com. 299.

See To confiscate. Bona confiscata. To CONFISCATE. [L. Lat. confiscare, from con, with, and fiscus, a treasury.] To adjudge to be forfeited to the public treasury; to condemn private forfeited property to public use. Webster. — To convert or appropriate private property to the use of the state, as being forfeited; to transfer private property to the fisc, or public treasury, on the ground of its being forfeited.

See 1 Kent's Com. 66, 59.

Debts are sometimes said to be confiscated.

Id. 62.

See Confiscation. "To confiscate" and "to forfeit" have been called synonymous terms, and have been so used.

Blount. Chase, J., 3 Dallas' R. 199.

This is on the authority of Lord Coke, who observes that confiscare and forisfacere are synonyma.

3 Inst. 227.

As used in modern law, however, there seems to be a clear distinction between them; to forfeit being properly applied to the act of the individual, and the consequent condition of his property; to confiscate, to the action of the state thereon. The individual forfeits; the property itself is forfeited; the state confiscates it as forfeited. Property cannot be confiscated without being legally forfeited, but it may be forfeited without being confiscated, as where a forfeiture is not taken advantage of. Where property is forfeited, it does not vest in the government, until after a seizure, which then relates back to the time of the forfeiture.

1 Story's R. 109.