Commonwealth v. Tucker

Decided October 15, 1872

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1872-10-15

Indictment alleging that the defendant set fire to the barn of William H. Codding, and by the kindling of said fire and the burning of said barn, the dwelling-house of Codding was “ burned and consumed.” At the trial in the Superior Court, before Brigham■, C. J., the evidence tended to show that the barn was burned entirely ; that the shingles on the roof of the dwelling-house took fire and were burned in two places; and that persons were on the roof keeping it wet with…

Cited in Anderson (1889)’s definition of “Business” · Cyclopedic (1922)’s definition of “Arser In Le Main”

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1872-10-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently May 2019

3 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Wells, J.

¶1The instructions given to the jury were correct, and in accordance with the authorities; as well those cited for the defendant as those for the Commonwealth. They required the jury to find that some portion of the dwelling-house had been actually on fire and burned. To have required them to find something more, by use of the terms “ consumed ” and “ destroyed,” as prayed for, would have been to go beyond the provisions of the statutes, and to leave the jury with no precise definition of that which was necessary to constitute the offence.

¶2Exceptions overruled.