State v. Shaw

Decided July 1, 1850

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine · decided 1850-07-01

Indictment, founded on R. S. chap. 155, sect. 3. It was for setting on fire and burning the bam of one Joel S avago being within the curtilage of his dwellinghouse, “ by which said firing, the said dwellinghouse was endangered.” The trial was before Wells, J. The following rude diagram and description will sufficiently illustrate the localities, according to the evidence.

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“need not be separated from other lands by fence.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including 660 So. 2d 1038 - State v. Hamilton

Cited in Anderson (1889)’s definition of “Curtilage” · Bouvier (1914)’s definition of “Curtilage”

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1850-07-01

How this case has been cited

Cited by 13 later decisions — most recently September 1995

1 district · 12 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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Tenney, J., orally,

¶1The counsel for defendant contends, that the Judge ought to have defined the term, curtilage, to the jury. But there was no request of the kind. Without such request, he was not bound to do so.

¶2Again, it is contended the barn was not within the curtilage. The curtilage of a dwellinghouse is a space, necessary and convenient and habitually used, for the family purposes, the carrying on of domestic employments. It includes the garden, if there be one. It need not be separated from other lands by fence. The ruling of the Judge was unobjectionable.

¶3Exceptions overruled.