MERCY, Practice. To be in mercy, signifies to be liable to punishment at the discretion¹ of the judge.

MERCY, crim. law. The total or partial remission of a punishment to which a convict is subject. When the whole punishment is remitted², it is called a pardon; (q. v.) when only a part of the punishment is remitted, it is frequently a conditional³ pardon; or before sentence, it is called clemency⁴ or mercy. Vide Rutherf. Inst. 224; 1 Kent, Com. 265; 3 Story, Const. 1488.

MERE⁵. This is the French word for mother. It is frequently used as, in ventre sa mere, which signifies; a child unborn, or in the womb.

MERGER⁶. Where a greater and lesser⁷ thing meet, and the latter loses its separate existence and sinks into the former. It is applied⁸ to estates, rights, crimes, and torts.

MERGER, estates. When a greater estate and less coincide and meet in one and the same person, without any intermediate estate, the less is immediately merged¹⁰, that is, sunk or drowned in the latter; example, if there be a tenant¹¹ for years, and the reversion in fee simple descends¹² to, or is purchased by him, the term of years is merged in the inheritance, and no longer exists; but they must be to one and the same person, at one and the same time, in one and the same right. 2 BL Com. 177; 3 Mass. Rep. 172; Latch¹³, 153; Poph. 166; 1 John. Ch. R. 417; 3 John. Ch. R. 53; 6 Madd. Ch. R. 119.

2. The estate in which the merger takes place, is not enlarged by the accession of the preceding estate; and the greater, or only subsisting¹⁴ estate, continues, after the merger, precisely¹⁵ of the same quantity and extent of ownership, as it was before the accession of the estate which is merged, and the lesser estate is extinguished. Prest. on Conv. 7. As a general rule, equal estates will not drown in each other.

3. The merger is produced, either from the meeting of an estate of higher degree, with an estate of inferior degree; or from the meeting of the particular estate and the immediate⁹ reversion, in the same person. 4 Kent, Com. 98. Vide 3 Prest. on Conv. which is devoted¹⁶ to this subject. Vide, generally, Bac. Ab. Leases, &c. R; 15 Vin. Ab. 361; Dane's Ab. Index, h. t.; 10 Verm. R. 293;; 8 Watts¹⁷, R. 146; Co. Litt. 338 b, note 4; Hill. Ab. Index, h. t.; Bouv. Inst; Index, h. t.; and Confusion; Consolidation¹⁸; Unity¹⁹ of Possession.

MERGER, crim. law. When a man commits a great crime which includes a lesser, the latter is merged in the former.

2. Murder, when committed by blows, necessarily includes an assault and battery; a battery, an assault; a burglary, when accompanied with a felonious taking of personal property, a larceny²⁰ in all these, and similar cases, the lesser crime is merged in the greater.

3. But when one offence is of the same character with the other, there is no merger; as in the case of a conspiracy²¹ to commit a misdemeanor, and the misdemeanor is afterwards committed in pursuance of the conspiracy. The two crimes being of equal degree, there can be no legal merger. 4 Wend. R. 265. Vide Civil Remedy.