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Scope and Content Note

Most entries concern writs of fieri facias and capias ad satisfaciendum and indicate type of writ, names of judgment debtor and judgment creditor, county from which writ was returned, whether or how the writ was executed, and name of attorney for the party for whom the writ was issued.

These registers contain entries of returns of writs of execution by sheriffs in counties served by the Albany office of the Supreme Court. The returns are mostly writs of fieri facias (fi. fa.) and capias ad satisfaciendum (ca. sa.), but there are a few for writs of habere facere possessionem and scire facias. Writs of fieri facias were sometimes reissued to the same sheriff a second time (alias fi. fa.) or even a third time (pluries fi. fa.) when a previous writ had failed to produce a judgment levy. When the sheriff of the county where the judgment debtor resided had returned the first writ of fieri facias as being non est, or "not found," a writ of testatum fieri facias might be issued to the sheriff of another county where the debtor was suspected to be hiding.

The entries in these registers contain the following data: names of judgment debtor (usually the original defendant) and judgment creditor (usually the original plaintiff); type of writ (abbreviated as above); county from which the writ was returned; whether or how the writ was executed; and name of attorney for the party for whom the writ was issued. Execution of a writ of fieri facias was either a levy of the judgment due ("satisfied") or a statement that nulla bona ("no goods") were found. The execution of a writ of capias ad satisfaciendum resulted either in a statement that the judgment debtor had been arrested ("body taken") or that he could not be found ("non est inventus"). The register for 1847-1854 contains entries for writs of execution returned by sheriffs in every county of the state, including New York City and County. These returns were for writs issued for judgments given by the Supreme Court of Judicature prior to the judicial reorganization of 1847.