State v. Hunt

Decided March 18, 1903

Supreme Court of Rhode Island · decided 1903-03-18

<p>(1) Assault. . Criminal Law'. Indictments.</p> <p>An assault consists in an offer to do bodily harm, made by a person who is in a position to inflict it; therefore á request to charge that “the jury must find that the bullet went in the direction of R. or there can be no assault with a dangerous weapon” was properly refused.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Heard on petition of defendant for new trial, and… · Decided 1903-03-18

How this case has been cited

Cited by 11 later decisions — most recently May 1976

11 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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Per Curiam.

¶1 (1) The only ruling of the court to which the defendant excepted is the refusal to charge that “the jury must find that the bullet went in the direction of the said Herbert W. Root or there can be no assault with a dangerous weapon.” It is clear that'this refusal was right. “An assault consists in an, offer to do bodily harm, made by a person who is in a position to inflict it,” as the court below charged. The accuracy or inaccuracy of aim does not determine guilt or innocence of the offence.

¶2 The evidence may properly have left in the minds of the jury a reasonable doubt of the commission of the whole offence charged in the indictment, but it fully justified their verdict that the defendant was guilty of simple assault.

¶3 Petition for new trial denied, and case remitted to the Common Pleas Division for sentence.