DEPUTY OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL. An officer appointed by the attorney general, who is to hold his office during the pleasure of the latter, and whose duty it is to perform, within a specified1 district, the duties of the attorney general. He must be a member of the bar. In Pennsylvania, by an act of assembly, passed May 3, 1850, district attorneys are elected by the people, who are required to perform the duties which, before that act, were performed by deputies of the attorney general.
DEPUTY DISTRICT ATTORNEYS. The Act of Congress of March 3, 1815, 2 Story L. U. S. 1530, authorizes2 and directs the district attorneys of the United States to appoint by warrant, an attorney as their substitute or deputy in all cases when necessary to sue or prosecute3 for the United States, in any of the state or county courts, by that act invested with certain jurisdiction4, within the sphere of whose jurisdiction the said district attorneys do not themselves reside or practice; and the said substitute or deputy shall be sworn or affirmed to the faithful execution of his duty.
DERELICT, common law. This term is applied5 in the common law in a different sense from what it bears in the civil law. In the former it is applied to lands left by the sea.
2. When so left by degrees the derelict land belongs to the owner of the soil adjoining but when the sea retires suddenly, it belongs to the government. 2 Bl. Com. 262 1 Bro. Civ. Law, 239; 1 Sumn. 328, 490 1 Gallis. 138; Bee, R. 62, 178, 260; Ware6, R. 332.
DERELICTO, civil law. Goods voluntarily abandoned by their owner; he must, however, leave them, not only sine spe revertendi, but also sine animzo revertendi; his intention to abandon them may be inferred by the great length of time during which he may have been out of possession, without any attempt to regain7 them. 1 Bro. Civ. Law, 239; 2 Bro. Civ. Law, 51; Wood s Civ. Law, 156; 19 Amer. Jur. 219, 221, 222 Dane s Ab. Index, h. t.; 1 Ware s R. 4 1.
DERIVATIVE8. Coming from another; taken from something preceding, secondary; as derivative title, which is that acquired from another person. There is considerable difference between an original and a derivative title. When the acquisition is original, the right thus acquired to the thing becomes property, which must be unqualified and unlimited9, and since no one but the occupant has any right to the thing, he must have the whole right of disposing of it. But with regard to derivative acquisition, it may be otherwise, for the person from whom the thing is acquired may not have an unlimited right to it, or he may convey or transfer it with certain reservations of right. Derivative title must always be by contract.
2. Derivative conveyances11 are, those which presuppose some other precedent12 conveyance10, and serve only to enlarge, confirm, alter, restrain, restore, or transfer the interest granted by such original conveyance, 3 Bl. Com. 321.
