“And now the usage is, for the judge to sign the calendar, or list of all the prisoners’ names, with their separate judgments in the margin, which is left with the sheriff. As, for capital felony, it is written opposite to the prisoner’s name, ‘hanged by the neck;’ formerly, in the days of Latin and abbreviation, ‘sus. per coll.’ for ‘suspendatur per collum.’ And this is the only warrant that the sheriff has for so material an act as taking away life of another.” 4 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 396 (1769).
suspendatur per collum
suspendatur per collum (s[schwa]s-pen-day-t[schwa]r p[schwa]r kahl-[ schwa]m). [Law French] Hist. Let him be hanged by the neck. • This phrase was written by a judge in the margin of the sheriff’s calendar, opposite the name of a prisoner who had been sentenced to death. — Abbr. sus. per coll.
