People v. Silva

The defendant was indicted and tried for an assault with intent to commit murder. The jury having returned a verdict which the court regarded as ambiguous, in not designating with sufficient precision which of the offenses of different grades defined in the section of the statute under which the indictment was framed, gave further instructions and sent the jury out to rectify their verdict in this particular. After consulting for an hour or more without being able to determine the offense of which they found the defendant guilty, the jury were again brought before the court, and after some…