In criminal law. The delivery or clearing of a gaol of the prisoners confined therein, by trying them.
In popular speech, the clearing of a gaol by the escape of the prisoners. General gaol delivery. In English law. At the assises (q. v.) the judges sit bv virtue of five several authorities, one of which is the commission of “general gaol delivery.” This empowers them to try and deliverance make of every prisoner who shall be in the gaol when the judges arrive at the circuit town, whether an indictment has been preferred at any previous assize or not. 4 Bl. Comm. 270. This is also a part of the title of some American criminal courts, as, in Pennsylvania, the “court of oyer and terminer and general jail delivery.”