General (not jurisdiction-specific)

Latin for “diminution of status” (also spelled capitis deminutio). In Roman law, caput meant a person’s legal status, made up of liberty, citizenship and family rights. A capitis diminutio was a loss or change of that status, in three grades: maxima, the loss of liberty, citizenship and family rights, as when a person became a slave; media, the loss of citizenship, which also carried away family rights, while liberty was kept; and minima, a change in family status only, as in arrogation (the adoption of a person who was his own master) or emancipation, while liberty and citizenship were kept.

The loss of civil rights and legal capacities while a person is still alive. Black’s Law Dictionary (2d ed. 1910) describes it as “that change in a person’s legal and civil condition which deprives him of civic rights and juridical capacities and qualifications, as natural death extinguishes his natural condition.” At common law it followed attainder, that is, a sentence of death or outlawry for treason or felony. Later, some American states applied it by statute to people sentenced to life imprisonment. For example, New York Civil Rights Law § 79-a(1) still provides that “a person sentenced to imprisonment for life is thereafter deemed civilly dead.” Rhode Island’s similar statute, R.I. Gen. Laws § 13-6-1, was held unconstitutional in its entirety in Zab v. Rhode Island Department of Corrections, 269 A.3d 741 (R.I. 2022). Today, a conviction more often brings specific “collateral consequences,” such as loss of voting or firearm rights, rather than full civil death.

Latin for “civilly dead.” Black’s Law Dictionary (2d ed. 1910) defines it as “Civilly dead; dead in the view of the law.” It describes a living person who is in a state of civil death, meaning the law treats him or her as dead for purposes of civil rights. See civil death.