capias ad respondendum

CAPIAS AD RESPONDENDUM, practice. A writ commanding the sheriff, or other 
proper officer, to "take the body of the defendant and to keep the same to 
answer, ad respondendum, the plaintiff in a plea," &c. The amount of bail 
demanded ought to, be indorsed on the writ. 
     2. A defendant arrested upon this writ must be committed to prison, 
unless he give a bail bond (q.v.) to the sheriff. In some states, (as, 
until lately, in Pennsylvania,) it is the practice, when the defendant is 
liable to this process, to indorse on the writ, No bail required in which 
case he need only give the sheriff, in writing, an authority to the 
prothonotary to enter his appearance to the action, to be discharged from 
the arrest. If the writ has been served, and the defendant have not given 
bail, but remains in custody, it is returned C. C., cepi corpus; if he have 
given bail, it is returned C. C. B. B., cepi corpus, bail bond; if the 
defendant's appearance have been accepted, the return is, "C. C. and 
defendant's appearance accepted." According to the course of the practice at 
common law, the writ bears teste, in the name of the chief justice, or 
presiding judge of the court, on some day in term time, when the judge is 
supposed to be present, not being Sunday, and is made returnable on a 
regular return day. 1 Penna. Pr. 36; 1 Arch. Pr. 67.