Commonwealth v. Hussey

Decided November 25, 1892

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1892-11-25

Indictment for adultery, averring that on September 18,1892, the defendants at Haverhill “ did commit the crime of adultery, by then and there having carnal knowledge of the bodies of each other.” At the trial in the Superior Court, before Fessenden, J., the defendants requested the judge to instruct the jury that in order to convict they must find that the act of sexual intercourse was completed by emission.

Relies on Commonwealth v. Roosnell · Waller v. State · State v. Shields

Cited in Bouvier (1914)’s definition of “Adultery”

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1892-11-25

How this case has been cited

Cited by 7 later decisions — most recently May 1999

7 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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Field, C. J.

¶1We are of opinion that the definition of what constitutes carnal knowledge of the body of a woman must be the same in prosecutions for adultery as in prosecutions for rape, and that according to the weight of authority the instructions given in the present case were correct. Commonwealth v. Squires, 97 Mass. 59. See Commonwealth v. Roosnell, 143 Mass. 32; Comstock v. State, 14 Neb. 205; State v. Shields, 45 Conn. 256; Osgood v. State, 64 Wis. 472; Waller v. State, 40 Ala. 325; People v. Crowley, 102 N. Y. 234; 9 George IV. c. 31, § 18; 24 & 25 Vict. c. 100, § 63; 2 Bish. Crim. Law, §§ 1127-1132; 1 East P. C. 436-440; Regina v. Jordan, 9 C. & P. 118; 3 Greenl. Ev. § 210.

¶2Exceptions overruled.