Sanctuary
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SANCTUARY. A place of refuge, where the process of the law cannot be
executed.
2. Sanctuaries may be divided into religious and civil. The former were
very common in Europe; religious houses affording protection from arrest to
all persons, whether accused of crime, or pursued for debt. This kind was
never known in the United States.
3. Civil sanctuary, or that protection which is afforded to a man by
his own house, was always respected in this country. The house protects the
owner from the service of all civil process in the first instance but not if
he is once lawfully arrested and takes refuge in his own house. Vide Door;
House.
4. No place affords protection from arrest in criminal cases; a man
may, therefore, be arrested in his own house in such cases, and the doors
may be broken for the purpose of making the arrest. Vide Arrest in criminal
cases.