New York State Supreme Court of Judicature (Utica) Committiturs and Orders for Exoneration of Bail

Chronological by year.

Records concerning surrender of a defendant and exoneration of his bail from liability include the committitur, copy of justice's show cause order to plaintiff, justice's order that the exoneretur be subscribed on the bail piece, and some original bail pieces.

This series contains documents pertaining to the surrender of a defendant and exoneration of his bail from liability for damages and costs awarded in a judgment. Bail might choose to render over their principal (i.e. the defendant) either before or after judgment, but it had to be done before return of writ of capias ad satisfaciendum, which commanded a sheriff to arrest and imprison a judgment debtor until the judgment was satisfied.

A typical file in this series contains the following documents: the committitur, which is a copy of bail piece, on which the sheriff states that he has taken the defendant into custody, and a judge or other court official states that the defendant has been rendered into custody by his bail and orders that he stand committed in the case; copy of the justice's order to the plaintiff to show cause why the exoneretur should not be endorsed upon the bail piece; copy of notice of impending order to show cause, sent to the plaintiff's attorney by the attorney for the bail; and a justice's final order that the exoneretur be subscribed upon the bail piece filed with the clerk of the Supreme Court. Later files in this series occasionally include the original bail piece with the exoneretur.

Committiturs for 1807-1817 were originally filed in series J0029, New York State Supreme Court of Judicature (Utica)

Writs of Habeas Corpus.

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