Sessions
The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary · Walter A. Shumaker and George Foster Longsdorf; ed. James C. Cahill · 1922
The Cyclopedic Law Dictionary
A sitting of justices in court upon their commission, or by virtue of their appointment, and most commonly for the trial of criminal cases. The title of several courts in England and the United States, chiefly those of criminal jurisdiction. the execution of the powers which are confided to them as such. (1) Petty sessions (or petit sessions) are sittings held by one or more justices for the trial of minor offenses, admitting to bail prisoners accused of felony, and the like purposes. When sitting for purposes of preliminary inquiry, the public cannot claim admittance; but it is otherwise when sitting for purposes of adjudication. (2) Special sessions are sittings of two or more justices on a particular occasion for the exercise of some given branch of their authority, upon reasonable notice given to the other magistrates of the hundred or other division of the county, city, etc., for which they are convened.
See St. 7 & 8 Vict. c. 33.
The counties are distributed into divisions, and authority given by various statutes to the justices acting for the several divisions to transact different descriptions of business, such as licensing alehouses, or appointing overseers of the poor, surveyors of the highways, etc., at special sessions. 3 Steph. Comm. 43, 44. (3) General sessions of the peace are courts of record, holden before the justices, whereof one is of the quorum, for execution of the general authority given to the justices by the commission of the peace and certain acts of parliament. The only description of general sessions now usually held is the court of general quarter sessions of the peace; but in the county of Middlesex, besides the four quarter sessions, four general sessions are held in the intervals, and original intermediate sessions occasionally take place. They may be called by any two justices in the jurisdiction, one being of the quorum, or by the custos rotulorum and one justice, but not by one justice or the custos rotulorum alone. (4) General quarter sessions of the peace.