Caption, in the practice of the law of England, is applied to the formal title of indictments and depositions, which shows the authority under which it is executed, or taken, as the word implies. Prior to 1837 caption was the name given in Scotland to the formal warrant to apprehend a debtor or other defaulting obligant, which was given in the Bill Chamber after letters of homing had been executed. In that year a simple form was introduced by the Personal Diligence Act, by which imprisonment can be effected (where still competent) without judicial intervention. Process-caption is also used in Scotland to denote a summary warrant of imprisonment, granted on the application of the clerk of court, for the purpose of forcing back the pleadings and other papers in a lawsuit, which have been borrowed by the party against whom the caption issues, and by whom they are unduly illegally retained. See DILIGENCE, EXECUTION, INDICTMENT, WARRANT.
In the United States, caption means the title of a deposition taken before a magistrate, the certificate of the taking of a commission subscribed before the commissioners, and in criminal law, that part of the record which precedes the recital of the indictment.