1. A jury’s verdict.
2. A judicial opinion or judgment.
3. A court’s order directing that a person in custody be released; esp., such an order by an ecclesiastical court.
— Also termed writ of deliverance.
4. Archaic. In a replevin action, a writ ordering the redelivery to the owner of goods.
second deliverance. Hist. A second replevin remedy after the plaintiff has been nonsuited and the distrained property has been returned to the defendant.
— Also termed writ of second deliverance.
“And at the common law, the plaintiff might have brought another replevin, and so in infinitum, to the intolerable vexation of the defendant. Wherefore the statute of Westm. 2, c. 2 restrains the plaintiff, when nonsuited, from suing any fresh replevin, but allows him a judicial writ issuing out of the original record, and called a writ of second deliverance, in order to have the same distress again delivered to him, on giving the like security as before. And, if the plaintiff be a second time nonsuit, or if the defendant has judgment upon verdict … he shall have a writ or return irreplevisable; after which no writ of second deliverance shall be allowed.” 3 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 150 (1767).
5. Such a release (as in sense 3) or redelivery (as in sense 4).
