Commonwealth v. Ordway

Decided October 15, 1853

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1853-10-15

This was an indictment under Rev. Sts. c. 125, § 16, for an assault with force and violence upon one Eleazer B. Buzzell, with intent to steal from his person. At the trial in the court of common pleas before Mellen, J., it appeared that said Buzzell had in his hands two bank-bills for the purpose of putting up, on a bet made by the defendants with him, which bills the defendants suddenly snatched, and ran away.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1853-10-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently July 2011

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

By the Court.1

¶1The opinion of the court is, that the evidence does not bring the case within the Rev. Sts. c. 125, § 16; there being no intentional touching of the person amounting to an assault.

¶2But a question arises, what judgment shall be rendered in a case thus brought up by a report of the judge pursuant to Rev. Sts. c. 138, § 12. Being of opinion that no verdict of *271conviction upon this indictment ought to be rendered upon the facts reported, the court are of opinion that by Rev. Sts. c. 138, § 14, the proper judgment is, and they do, therefore, order, that all further proceedings upon this verdict be stayed, and that the defendants be discharged and go without day.

¶3 This, and the following cases for this county, were decided at the October term, 1852, at which the Chief Justice, and Justices Metcalf, Bigelow, and Cushing, were present.