What is the legal significance of using multiple synonyms in a legal sentence?

[Swamp Thing]

Yet the coroner’s report concluded that the patient herself was responsible for her death: “The deceased did kill and slay herself by refusing to eat whilst the balance of her mind was disturbed.”

( https://theamericanscholar.org/the-decreationist/ )

Do the words "kill and "slay" have distinct legal meanings that need to be specified separately?

More generally, you often see several synonyms thrown in together in legal sentences. Is it because of separate precise legal meanings that need to be included, or is it a kind of historical-cultural thing where they felt that it sounded more comprehensive that way?

 

[Haborix]

Since a coroner is not really someone trained in law, I'm not sure what to make of your particular example. As to the general use of these redundancies in law, I think this is more of a historical-cultural thing. The trend in modern legal writing is to remove these redundancies, which appear frequently in older legal materials. I do not know, but historically there were some strict matters of form that needed to be observed, so I suspect many of these strange writing habits got baked into the proper forms that needed to be observed in courts and legal documents to make them effective.

 

[phinds]

many of these strange writing habits got baked into the proper forms that needed to be observed in courts and legal documents to make them effective

This

 

[renormalize]

Do the words "kill and "slay" have distinct legal meanings that need to be specified separately?

More generally, you often see several synonyms thrown in together in legal sentences. Is it because of separate precise legal meanings that need to be included, or is it a kind of historical-cultural thing where they felt that it sounded more comprehensive that way?

Explained here: Legal doublet

 

[DaveC426913]

Oh God. Why have you done this thing to me. Sent me down a lexical rabbit hole...
Now I MUST KNOW all there is to know about:Legal doublets (eg. cease and desist):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_doublet
Irreversible binomials (eg. mac and cheese):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreversible_binomial
Fossil words (eg. dint as in by dint of):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_word
Unpaired words (eg. unkempt):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unpaired_word

Every article leads to another fascinating article, all the way down...

 

[pbuk]

Since a coroner is not really someone trained in law

In England (and many other places) they are.

The Offences Against the Person Act 1861 (this part of which was in force I believe until 1965) contains the following provision: note the distinction between "kill and murder" and "kill and slay".
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/24-25/100/crossheading/homicide/enacted

6 Indictment for Murder or Manslaughter.

In any Indictment for Murder or Manslaughter, or for being an Accessory to any Murder or Manslaughter, it shall not be necessary to set forth the Manner in which or the Means by which the Death of the Deceased was caused, but it shall be sufficient in any Indictment for Murder to charge that the Defendant did feloniously, wilfully, and of his Malice aforethought kill and murder the Deceased ; and it shall be sufficient in any Indictment for Manslaughter to charge that the Defendant did feloniously kill and slay the Deceased; and it shall be sufficient in any Indictment against any Accessory to any Murder or Manslaughter to charge the Principal with the Murder or Manslaughter (as the Case may be) in the Manner herein-before specified, and then to charge the Defendant as an Accessory in the Manner heretofore used and accustomed.

I suspect that the coronor used these words because there was no equivalent statutory definition of suicide.

 

[Haborix]

In England (and many other places) they are.

Ah, you're right. They are trained in the law in a similar sense to how police are trained in the law. I only meant to say they aren't lawyers, so I wouldn't give any weight to the terms they use.

 

[pbuk]

Ah, you're right. They are trained in the law in a similar sense to how police are trained in the law. I only meant to say they aren't lawyers

No, most coroners in the UK are lawyers and since July 2013 they must be.

I wouldn't give any weight to the terms they use.

Maybe you wouldn't, but in the UK a coroners words carry a great deal of weight: in England and Wales they are answerable only to the High Court.

 

[Haborix]

Fascinating! I had assumed the US and UK would be similar. UK coroner's appear to be a combination of U.S. coroner, detective, and prosecutor.

 

[gmax137]

Tangent on legalese:
I noticed that here in Nevada, the news reports will often say, "the suspect has been charged with open murder in the death of so & so..." I don't think I heard "open murder" before, so I looked it up. Apparently, it allows prosecutors to keep their options open when charging an offender with murder. It enables them to charge the offender with the highest degree of murder, as well as each lesser type of murder, including each alternative theory of murder...

 

[Vanadium 50]

It enables them to charge the offender with the highest degree of murder, as well as each lesser type of murder,

In many jurisdictions this is called a "lesser included offense". One can be charged with murder but only be convicted of "unlawful discharge of a firearm".

This has had some very interesting interactions with the constitutional provision against double jeopardy.