Coats v. Roberts

The opinion of the Court was delivered by

Fenner, J.

The petition discloses the facts that the son of plaintiff and the son of defendant were summoned by the sheriff to serve as members of a posse comitatus to assist in arresting an escaped convict, and while acting in that capacity defendant’s son, a minor, shot and mortally wounded the son of plaintiff, mistaking, or claiming to have mistaken, him for the convict. It is averred that the sheriff had warned the members of the posse not to shoot at the convict unless he refused to surrender when ordered, and that care and caution were necessary…