I just heard this word for the first time, from a California criminal defense lawyer I know; it seems to be a purely California legalism — the over 30 uses I found on Westlaw, starting with the mid-1980s but accelerating in the last ten years, all come from California.
Many sentencing schemes dramatically enhance a person’s sentence if he has been convicted in the past of certain kinds of prior offenses. A “priorable” offense is an offense that can count as a “prior” under such a scheme; the term is usually with some particular scheme, which is clear from context, in mind. There is also apparently an older meaning in botany, which refers to a term’s having priority for purposes of naming a newly identified species.
I’m not praising this term, or urging that it be used more broadly; but I thought it was worth noting.
california law student says:
Having interned in a PD’s office in California, I can confirm the wide use not only of “priorable” but also of “strikable”, i.e., eligible to count as a “strike” under the California Three Strikes Law. It occurs to me that there are additional quirky terms I recall hearing, produced by the morass that is California sentencing, but that aren’t occurring to me offhand.
December 16, 2009, 7:48 pmjccamp says:
Excoriable?
December 16, 2009, 7:52 pmneurodoc says:
“Priorable,” “strikeable,” and similar terms all qualify as jargon, don’t they, given their special meanings and restricted applications to criminal law in California and maybe some other states. While they may not have fine etymologic pedigrees, like most jargon they do the job, clearly conveying their intended meaning, and doing so with concision. I don’t know that lexicographers would give these terms their stamp of approval, but does that matter?
December 16, 2009, 8:24 pmArkady says:
Absolutely not. After all, the word ‘billable’ looms large in the lawyerly lexicon.
December 16, 2009, 8:45 pmneurodoc says:
“Billable” isn’t in Black’s, but I do see it in a Webster’s that sits on my shelf. The Webster’s definition says nothing about any particular relevance to lawyers, but “billable” certainly conveys its meaning clearly and concisely enough. If “billable,” like “priorable” or “strikeable,” isn’t a term that non-lawyers aren’t likely understand, should it be counted as jargon? If words are used outside an “insider” group of one sort or another, then can they be seen as jargon?
Also, I imagine “priorable” and “strikeable” might go away were California to change its criminal sentencing laws. If, for example, there was no more “three strikes and you’re out” law, then what use for “strikeable”? How about “billable,” as in “billable hours,” might it too go away some day, if more clients balked at paying according to time on the meter? (If one was only out after 4 strikes in baseball, not after 3, then would California have a “4 Strikes Law” rather than the “3 Strikes Law” it does have?)
What other legal “jargon”? I do like jargon when I know the meaning and can use it knowingly, since then I can feel like someone in the know. Medicine is, of course, full of jargon. Come on, talk jargon to me, I like it.
December 16, 2009, 9:15 pmDave N. says:
I have also used “enhanceable,” which means a subsequent conviction can be used for enhancement purposes — usually DUIs, but some other crimes as well.
December 16, 2009, 10:00 pmDavid McCourt says:
Priorable?!
Try ‘orrible.
December 16, 2009, 10:47 pmPriorable | Liberal Whoppers says:
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December 16, 2009, 11:54 pmGov98 says:
It’s amazing that it’s the first time you’ve heard of it, I feel like I hear about it every other day. This is priorable as a prior prison term or that’s priorable for a second DUI. Just funny to think how insulated (me) one can become in their practice area.
December 17, 2009, 12:08 amJohn R. Mayne says:
I hear this regularly – and have for the nearly nine years I’ve been a prosecutor. It’s a highly useful word.
I hear it two ways – PRY-ur-uh-bull, and occasionally Pry-OR-uh-BULL, which sounds much worse to me.
December 17, 2009, 1:20 amGuy says:
Of course not, how dare you suggest that California’s sentencing system is based on anything but sound research and careful policy decisions weighing all the relevant costs and benefits?
December 17, 2009, 6:11 amArkady says:
T’was only a poor attempt being humorable on my part.
December 17, 2009, 6:38 amSasha Volokh says:
Clearly “priorable” means “qualified to be made prior (of a priory),” just like various cardinals are considered “papabile.”
December 17, 2009, 8:20 amneurodoc says:
Fortunately, I am not myself in the “billable hour” thing, but a good many friends and some family are. It is a subject in which some may find humorous possibilities, though those are mostly of the “black” humor sort.
December 17, 2009, 11:10 amDavid McCourt says:
“Clearly ‘priorable’ means ‘qualified to be made prior (of a priory),’ just like various cardinals are considered ‘papabile.’”
A hit, a very papabile hit.
December 17, 2009, 11:20 amneurodoc says:
Of course, one doesn’t get more than 3 strikes in baseball before they are out. But why not make it like football, in which a team gets at most 4 tries to make a first down or score, failing which they have to turn the ball over the other side. Or, if you think California’s present law is too harsh and causes too many injustices, then perhaps revise it to make it more like basketball, in which a person might get 2 shots from the foul line? (These are the sports “models” that come first to mind. Maybe I’ll go off and try for rationales for a 5-time loser law, a 6-time loser one, and as many as I can think of. I’d look for a 1-time-and-you’re-out justification, but that seems to me to be too much a degenerate case.)
December 17, 2009, 11:21 amneurodoc says:
Boy, that’s certainly a term of limited applicability.
December 17, 2009, 11:23 amJoe Photon says:
Priorable – capable of fitting into a priority order (applicable to a single item); capable of arrangement in a linear ordering (applicable to a group of items)
Absent the special application of the legal jargon background, that would have been my guess as to the primary definition.
JP
December 17, 2009, 1:04 pm