Depose

[L. Lat. deponere, q. v.] In practice. To state or testify under oath, in writing; to make a statement or give testimony under oath, which is reduced to writing; to make a statement which is reduced to writing and sworn to; to put down in writing what is afterwards sworn to.* A word constantly used in affidavits, as " A. B. of —, being duly sworn, deposes and says that," <fec. See Deposition. In old practice. To state under oath, without reference to writing; to testify or make oath to the truth of a thing. " Deposed upon a book."

Cro. Eliz. 470.

See Deponere. This word seems to be derived essentially from the canon law, in which the Lat. deponere and its derivatives are constantly applied to the statements of witnesses in judicial proceedings.

Durand.

Speculum Juris, lib.

1, tit.

De teste

From the same source it has also probably derived its present peculiar application to written testimony, it having always been the practice in the ecclesiastical courts to reduce the proofs to writing.

3 Bl. Com. 100.

The proper meaning of deponere itself (to put or lay down,) has been supposed to imply the sense of putting down in writing; but there are very early instances of its use in English practice without any reference to roritten statement. Thus, it is said in Bracton of a jury, veritatem rei deponant ex in^ tegro, (they shall depose the truth of the matter anew,) clearly importing an oral statement, viz., the delivery of a verdict, under oath. Bract, fol.

293.

The word appears to have been used in the same sense in Knight v. Rushwood, Cro, Mix, 469. Besides, if " to put down in tvriting'' be the radical sense of depose, it seems difficult to see the propriety of its application to a witness, who in affidavits is every day repeatedly called a deponent, and said to depose, though he commonly does not put down a line, and writes nothing but his signature. Deposing in this sense is rather the act of the officer who takes the testimony than of the witness who gives it. In Knight V. Rushwood, the court held that " to depose and lay down are in truth synonyma"; but what the party swearing may be considered to lay down is not clear, unless perhaps there be some reference in the original use of the word to laying the hand upon the gospels, that being anciently, as at present, the usual form of making oath, as contrasted with the rarer form of swearing by the uplifted hand, {erectis sursum manibus,) Bract, fol.

143 b.

See Hand, Oath, Uplifted hand. In modem practice, however, depose has imdoubtedly become fixed in the sense of stating under oath what is reduced in full to writing. Hence a party is now never said to depose imless his statement is at the same time put down in writing, either by himself or the officer before whom he is sworn and examined. In open court, as on a trial before a jury, where no professed record is taken of his evidence, a witness is said to testify; out of court, as before a judge, commissioner or exammer, he is properly said to depose.