venire facias

9.9

A court order telling a sheriff to bring people to serve on a jury

noun
/vəˈnɪrɪ ˈfeɪʃəs/

Formal

: venire facias

The court issued a venire facias to summon jurors.

Examples

Without a venire facias, the sheriff had no authority to summon a jury.
Each venire facias must be served promptly.
The court issued a venire facias to compel attendance of jurors at the upcoming trial.
The lawyer referenced the venire facias during his explanation of the jury selection process.
The court issued a venire facias to compel attendance of jurors at the upcoming trial.
Without a venire facias, the sheriff had no authority to summon a jury.
The lawyer referenced the venire facias during his explanation of the jury selection process.

Synonyms

judicial writ

vsvenire facias

Formal

1 8.2

A document from a court that orders someone to do or stop something

is specific to summoning citizens for jury service via the sheriff

Surface Forms

venire facias singular

venire faciases plural

Morphology

venire + facias

This is a fixed Latin legal formula whose meaning as a writ summoning jurors is specialized legalese and not compositionally derived from its parts. Even if a learner knew 'venire' (panel of jurors), 'facias' is opaque/unknown and the phrase functions as a technical idiom, so a B1 learner would not be able to predict the meaning.

Etymology

Venire facias is a noun from old court Latin: the words venire ('to come') and facias ('you make' or 'cause') form a short order to bring people. So the image of a written command telling a sheriff to 'make people come' is why venire facias means 'an order to call people for jury duty' today.