Hamesucken

In Scotch law

The crime of hamesucken consists in "the felonious seeking and invasion of a person in his dwelling house."

1 Hume, Hist. Eng. 312; Alis. Crim. Law, 199.

The mere breaking into a house, without personal violence, does not constitute the offense, nor does the violence without an entry with intent to commit an assault. It is the combination of both which completes the crime. It is necessary (1) that the invasion of the house should have proceeded from forethought malice; but it is sufficient if, from any illegal motive, the violence has been meditated, although it may not have proceeded from the desire of wreaking personal revenge, properly so called. (2) The place where the assault was committed must have been the proper dwelling house of the party injured, and not a place of business, visit, or occasional residence. (3) The offense may be committed equally in the day as in the night, and not only by effraction of the building by actual force, but by an entry obtained by fraud, with the intention of inflicting personal violence, followed by its perpetration. (4) But, unless the injury to the person be of a grievous and material character, it is not hamesucken, though the violence be done lucri causa, or from personal spite. The punishment of hamesucken in aggravated cases of injury is death; in cases of inferior atrocity, an arbitrary punishment. Alis. Crim. Law, c.

6; Ersk. Inst. 4. 9. 23.

This term was formerly used in England instead of the now modern term "burglary."

4 Bl. Comm. 223.

But in Hale's Pleas of the Crown it is said: "The common genus of offenses that comes under the name of 'hamesucken' is that which is usually called 'house breaking'; which sometimes comes under the common appellation of 'burglary,' whether committed in the day or night to the intent to commit felony; so that house breaking of this kind is of two natures."

1 Hale, P. C. 547; 22 Pick. (Mass.) 4.

HAMFARE (Saxon, from ham, a house). In Saxon law. An assault made in a house; a breach of the peace in a private house. Spelman; Blount.