Case Name: THE STATE vs. WILLIAM REEVES
Court: Supreme Court of North Carolina
Jurisdiction: North Carolina
Decision Date: 1839-06
Citations: 3 Dev. & Bat. 187
Docket Number: 
Parties: THE STATE vs. WILLIAM REEVES.
Judges: 
Reporter: North Carolina Reports
Volume: 20
Pages: 187–188

Head Matter:
THE STATE vs. WILLIAM REEVES.
A precept from a single justice of the peace, endorsed on a magistrate’s, judgment, and directed to the sheriff, commanding him“ to take the body” of the defendant “ and him safely keep until he is discharged as the law directs,” though an informal, is yet a valid ca. sa. and will justify the sheriff in making an arrest under it.
This was an indictment for an assault upon an officer while in the execution of process, tried at Bladen, on the last circuit, before his Honor Judge Pearson.
It was in evidence that the sheriff had a capias ad satis-faciendum against the defendant, and informed him of it; whereupon bn refused to be taken, and attempted to strike the sheriff with a hammer. The process under which the officer acted was written upon the back of a paper which contained a magistrate’s warrant and judgment in the regular form.' On the same paper was also endorsed a fieri facias, to which the return of “no goods,” was regularly made; and then followed the process in question, in the following words:
“ To tlie Sheriff of Bladen County. You are hereby commanded to take the body of William Reeves, and him safely keep, until he is discharged as the law directs.
JOHN MELVIN, J. P.
July 11, 1838.”
The defendant’s counsel insisted that this was not a ca. sa. and did not protect the officer in making the arrest. The Court charged that the precept, although not in the usual form of aca. sa., was sufficient to protect the officer in mak ing the arrest. The defendant was found guilty, and, after an i-neiFectual motion for a new trial, appealed.
June 1839
Strange for the defendant. .
The Attorney General for'the’ State.

Opinion:
Gaston, Judge.
The writ upon which the sheriff undertook to arrest the defendant, is so very defective, that with every disposition to view with indulgence the process of magistrates in the exercise of their civil jurisdiction, we should have great difficulty in sustaining it as an execution, were it not for the principles established in former adjudications. But after it has been long settled, that a mandate from a magistrate, endorsed upon a judgment "execute and sell the defendant's property according to law," is a valid fieri facias to make the amount of that judgment out of the goods and chattels of the defendant, and for want of such, to levy upon his lands, we do not see how we can hold that the mandate in this case is not a valid capias ad satisfaciendum. It is endorsed on the judgment — is addressed to the proper officer — orders1 the seizure of the defendant's person according to law — and if it be not a ca. sa. neither is nor resembles any thing else. Perhaps it might have been better, had a less latitudinous interpretation been originally put upon these acts of magisterial power; but we cannot now do so, without, throwing the law into confusion.
This opinion is to be certified to the court below, with directions to proceed to judgment againbt Jhe defendant accordingly; and there must be judgment against him here for costs.
Per Curiam. Judgment to be affirmed.