LATINI JUNIANI
Latini Juniani (l<<schwa>>-tI-nI joo-nee-ay-nI), n. pl.[Latin “Junian Latins”] Roman law.
Informally manumitted slaves who acquired some rights and privileges as free people, but not Roman citizenship. • They were a special class of freedmen (libertini) who could one day become citizens. If a Latinus Junianus did not become a citizen, then upon death that person’s status reverted to slavery, and his or her patron acquired all the decedent’s property. — Also termed libertine Junian Latins. See LEX JUNIA NORBANA. Cf. INGENUUS; SERVUS(1).
“Upon all these persons … a new and definite status was conferred; they were henceforth to be known as Latini Juniani, their position being based upon Latinitas, a status which had been enjoyed by certain Latin colonists. A Latinus Junianus had no public rights …. But he had part of the commercium, i.e. he could acquire proprietary and other rights inter vivos, but not mortis causâ. A Latinus Junianus, therefore, could neither take under a will … nor could he make one …. But, subject to these disabilities, a Latinus Junianus was a free man, and his children, though not, like the children of citizens, under his potestas, were free-born citizens.” R.W. Leage, Roman Private Law 68–69 (C.H. Ziegler ed., 2d ed. 1930). LATITAT
latitat (lat-<<schwa>>-tat), n.[Law Latin “he lurks”] Hist. A writ issued in a personal action after the sheriff returned a bill of Middlesex with the notation that the defendant could not be found. • The writ was called latitat because of its fictitious recital that the defendant lurks about in the county. It was abolished by the Process in Courts of Law at Westminster Act of 1832 (St. 2, Will. 4, ch. 39). See BILL OF MIDDLESEX; TESTATUM.
“Latitat is a writ by which all men in personal actions are originally called in the king’s bench to answer. And it is called latitat, because it is supposed by the writ that the defendant cannot be found in the county of Middlesex, as it appears by the return of the sheriff of that county, but that he lurks in another county: and therefore to the sheriff of that county is this writ directed to apprehend him.” Termes de la Ley 277 (1st Am. ed. 1812).
[Blacks Law 8th]