Where does the phrase "possession is nine tenths of the law" come from?

Need some quick help if anyone knows the answer to this. If you can provide a cite or link within the next hour I would be much obliged. Thanks.

 

Yeah, I read that. It says it came from "old English Common Law (but other sources claim it is much older)".

It doesn't really give a whole lot of detail about the origins of the saying.

 

A deleted scene in the early John Holmes videography.

 

Here's something:

Quote It Completely: World Reference Guide to More Than 5,500 Memorable Quotations from Law and Literature [K58 .Q68 1998, Ref.]. On page 833, under the heading Possession, it says, "Possession is very strong; rather more than nine points of the law" _ Lord Mansfield, 1774.

Have no idea if that's accurate, but it's a lead.

 

Here's a source for Lord Mansfield being the, umm, source of the quote:

http://bit.ly/10sYXI

("Introduction to Law," by Beth Walston-Dunham, fifth ed., 2008)

 

So Mansfield is saying that possession is three-quarters of a pica of the law?

 

I think there is some exception if Indiana is playing Michigan.

 

They just needed a more formal sounding phrase than "Finders' keepers losers' weepers."

 

It came from the guy who got the other guy to hold his weed.

 

Where's William Safire when you need him.

 

Awesome. Thanks.