General (not jurisdiction-specific)

Latin for “mask,” the mask worn by actors in ancient theater. In Roman law and later legal writing, persona came to mean a person as the bearer of legal rights and duties, that is, a legal role, as distinct from the human being. The English word “person” comes from it.

Another name for an artificial or legal person, such as a corporation, that the law treats as able to hold rights and duties apart from the human beings involved with it. Compare natural person.

Law French for “single woman.” A woman who is not married, including a widow or a divorced woman, and who can own property, make contracts and sue in her own name. A feme sole trader was a married woman allowed by law to carry on business on her own account as if unmarried.

Law French for “covered woman.” A married woman under the common-law doctrine of coverture, whose legal rights were merged into her husband’s. Compare feme sole.

The common-law doctrine under which a married woman’s legal existence was merged into her husband’s while the marriage lasted. A married woman under coverture, called a feme covert, generally could not own property, make contracts or sue in her own name. States dismantled coverture gradually through Married Women’s Property Acts; New York’s 1848 act, for example, protected a married woman’s separate property, and later laws added rights to contract and to keep her earnings.

Latin for “not of one’s own right.” A person who lacks full legal capacity to manage his or her own affairs, such as a minor or a person under guardianship. The opposite of sui juris.

At common law, a process that put a person who refused to answer legal process outside the protection of the law. It applied in civil as well as criminal cases. Outlawry for treason or felony amounted to a conviction and led to attainder.

A common-law consequence of attainder: the attainted person could neither inherit property nor pass it to heirs, so the line of inheritance through that person was cut off. The U.S. Constitution forbids it for treason: “no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted” (art. III, § 3, cl. 2).

A legislative act that inflicts punishment on named individuals or on easily ascertainable members of a group without a judicial trial (United States v. Lovett, 328 U.S. 303, 315 (1946)). The Constitution provides: “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed” (art. I, § 9, cl. 3), and it bars the states from passing one (art. I, § 10, cl. 1). In United States v. Brown, 381 U.S. 437 (1965), the Court struck down a federal law barring Communist Party members from serving as union officers as a bill of attainder.

At common law, the extinction of civil rights and capacities that followed a sentence of death or a judgment of outlawry for treason or felony. Its consequences included forfeiture of property and corruption of blood. The U.S. Constitution limits it: “no Attainder of Treason shall work Corruption of Blood, or Forfeiture except during the Life of the Person attainted” (art. III, § 3, cl. 2).