Commonwealth v. Fox
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
The defendant was indicted for the murder of Ellen Fox, his wife, and was tried on the 6th of January 1857, before Justices Metcalf, Bigelow and Merrick. The indictment charged him with murdering his wife by assaulting and beating her, throwing her down upon the floor, and with his hands and feet striking, kicking and bruising her.
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The defendant was indicted for the murder of Ellen Fox, his wife, and was tried on the 6th of January 1857, before Justices Metcalf, Bigelow and Merrick. The indictment charged him with murdering his wife by assaulting and beating her, throwing her down upon the floor, and with his hands and feet striking, kicking and bruising her. The evidence tended to show that the wife, at the time of the assault, was suffering severely with lung fever, of which she must probably have died in a short time, if the assault had not been committed; but that the assault committed by the defendant hastened her…
1Opinion of the CourtBigelow, J.
It is necessary that the criminal act, with which the defendant is charged, should be set out and described in the indictment in clear, formal and distinct terms, and that the proof should correspond with and support the allegations in the indictment. This is necessary, in order that the prisoner may understand the precise nature and character of the criminal act with which he is charged, and be prepared to meet it at the trial. In indictments for homicide, it is always essential to aver the mode or means by which life was taken, and to prove substantially that the criminal act was in fact…
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