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16 Ala. 65

O'Neill v. State

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided January 15, 1849

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1849-01-15

Tried before thé Hon. George W. Lane. The plaintiff in error was tried under an indictment, charging him with an affray.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1849-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions (3 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2024

1 state decisions

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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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DARGAN, J.

¶1An: affray is. the fighting of two or more «-persons in some pubfic place, but no quarrelsome words ¡¡merely, will constitute this offence. 1 Russell, 271; Archb. Cr. Pl. 564; 1 Hawk 135; 5 Yerger, 356. It is probable, however, that if persons arm themselves «with deadly or unusual weapons for the purpose of an affray, and in such man? ,ner as tó strike terror to the people, they may b,e guilty of this «offence, without coming to actual blows. 1 Russell 271. Yet no authority goes so far as to hold that mere vulgar or low abuse, cap constitute ¡this offence. We think, ¡therefore, that the court erred in refusing the ¡charge requested, that mere words would not constitute an .affray, and also in charging, that if pne used insulting language to anpther, in consequence of which, fthe person insulted attacks the one insulting him, the party .attacked is guilty of an affray, -whether he resisted the attack or not.

¶2Let the judgment be reversed and the cause remanded.

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