ARREST' (Low Lat. arrestarr, from Lat. ad, to + restore, to stop behind). The apprehension or detention of a person by authority of law. If the seizure or restraint is unlawful, it amounts to false imprisonment. (See FALSE IMPRISON MENT.) At present arrest takes place more fre quently in criminal than in civil proceedings. Not so formerly. (1) Civil aro:Rt.—By a fiction of the coMMon law a person who did not pay a judgment against him was deemed guilty of a breach of the peace, "subjecting his body to im prisonment," says Blackstone, "by the writ of cupias ad rcspondrndum." The judges who es tablished this fiction had no bowels of compas sion for the insolvent debtor. Said Justice Hyde, in Dit13: "If a man is taken in execution and lies in prison for debt, neither the plaintiff, at whose suit he is arrested, nor the sheriff who took him is bound to find him meat, drink, or clothes. Ile must live on his own, or on the charity of others, and if no man will relieve him, let him die in the name of (;od, says the law, and so say I." This inhuman policy worked badly, as in human policies generally do; and a few years after Justice Ityde's heartless declaration, Par liament felt compelled to enter upon a course of mitigating legislation. which terminated during the last century in the abolition of imprison ment for debt, both in Britain and in this country. In sonic civil actions a party is still subject to arrest, either during its progress or upon its termination. As a rule these actions are of a quasi-criminal nature. e.g. to recover a fine or a penalty; or they are brought to redress wrongs to person or property done by the one arrestable. D•dinarily, a warrant of arrest
in a civil suit will not justify the officer in breaking into a house to take the party; • nor can it be lawfully executed on Sunday: nor are cer tain privileged persons, such as foreign repro sentatives, members of Congress and Legislature in attendance upon their duties, and others liable to arrest. in eivil proceedings. (2) Criminal arrest.—Not only public officers. but private persons as well, may arrest an actual or sus pected criminal. For a crime committed in his presence, or for a felony committed, although not in his presence, either a peace officer or a private person may arrest the offender without a warrant (q.v.), and a peace officer is author ized to arrest without a warrant, on reasonable suspicion that the arrested party has committed a felony. This subject is regulated by statutes in each jurisdiction, as is the mode of obtaining a warrant; and the statutes should be exam ined. A criminal arrest may be made on any day: a peace officer may break into a building to execute a criminal warrant, as well as call upon any person to assist him; and, as a rule, only foreign representatives, with their families and trains, are privileged from criminal arrest. Consult: Hawley, Laic of Arrest on criminal Charges (2d ed.. Chicago, 1891) ; Freeman, A Treatise on the Lair of Executions in Civil Cases (3d ed., San Francisco, 1900) ; and the works mentioned under the articles referred to above.