Deodand - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition deodand

Definition :

Deodand [fr. deo dandum, Lat.], a personal chattel which had been the immediate occasion of the death of any reasonable creature; it was forfeited to the Crown to be applied to pious uses and distributed in alms by the high almoner; but the right to deodands had been for the most part granted out to the lords of manors or other liberties to the perversion of the original design. The law made the following extraordinary distinction, that no deodand was due where an infant under the age of discretion was killed by a fall from a cart or horse or the like, not being in motion, whereas if an adult person fell thence and was killed the thing was certainly forfeited. In all indictments for homicide, the instrument of death and the value were presented and found by the grand jury (as that the blow was given by a certain bludgeon, value 9d.), that the Crown or the grantee might claim the deodand; for it was no deodand unless it was presented as such by a jury of twelve men. Deodands were abolished by 9 & 10 Vict. c. 62. See Jac. Law Dict.; Williams on Rights of Common, pp. 3, 293.