Commonwealth v. Hersey
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Indictment for murder. The first count charged that George C. Hersey, “ on the third day of May in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and sixty, at Weymouth in the county of Norfolk, in and upon one Betsey Frances Tirrell, in the peace oí the said commonwealth then and there being, wilfully, feloniously and of his malice aforethought, did make an assault, and to her the said Betsey Frances Tirrell did feloniously, wilfully and of his malice aforethought, then and there…
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Indictment for murder. The first count charged that George C. Hersey, “ on the third day of May in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and sixty, at Weymouth in the county of Norfolk, in and upon one Betsey Frances Tirrell, in the peace oí the said commonwealth then and there being, wilfully, feloniously and of his malice aforethought, did make an assault, and to her the said Betsey Frances Tirrell did feloniously, wilfully and of his malice aforethought, then and there give and administer a certain large quantity, to wit, ten grains in weight, of a certain deadly poison called strychnine,…
1Opinion of the CourtBigelow, C. J.
The motion in arrest of judgment in the present case is founded on the omission to aver that the defendant, in administering poison to the deceased, did it with an intent to kill and murder. No direct authority or adjudication has been cited by the counsel for the prisoner in support of the position that such an averment is necessary or essential to the validity of the indictment. They do, however, rely on forms or precedents, which are found in text books of approved authority and in reported cases, in which the allegation that the poison was administered with intent to kill is distinctly…
2Cited by1 opinion
- State v. ChildSupreme Court of Kansas · 1889