Per Tindal, C. J., to the jury-" You are to say, whether, in the execution of that duty which the prisoner had undertaken to perform, he is proved to have shewn such a gross want of care, or such a gross and culpable want of skill, as any person undertaking such a charge ought not to be guilty of; and that the death of the person named in the indictment was caused thereby." The prisoner was convicted, and sentenced to six months' imprisonment*. Joseph Senior was convicted before Bolland, B., at the Chester Spring Assizes, 1832, on an indictment which charged him with the manslaughter of the male infant child of A. H., and Alice his wife, by mortally wounding the said child upon the head with a knife. It appeared that the prisoner, who practised midwifery, was called in to attend A. H. who was taken in labour, and that when the head of the child had become visible, the prisoner, being grossly ignorant of the art which he professed, and unable to deliver the woman with safety to herself and the child, as might have been done by a person of ordinary skill, broke and compressed the skull of the infant, and thereby occasioned its death immediately after it was born. Cottingham, for the prisoner, submitted that the indictment was misconceived, and that the child being in ventre sa mere at the time the wound was given, the prisoner could not be guilty of manslaughter. Bolland, B., thought the objection invalid, and sentenced the prisoner to a year's imprisonment. The Judges were unanimously of opinion that the conviction was right. 1 M. C. C. 346. HOMICIDE-MURDER. YORK Sum Assizes, 1823. A civil tres pass will not a pistol. Meade's and Belt's Case. Prisoners were indicted for murder. Meade for justify firing having shot one Law with a pistol, and Belt as having been present aiding and abetting him. Forcible possession of a close, and breach of the peace, is more than a It appeared that Meade had rendered himself obnoxious to the boatmen at Scarborough by giving intrespass; so is formation to the Excise of certain smuggling transactions in which some of them had been engaged; a forcible in vasion of ano ther man's dwelling. A man is not and the boatmen, in revenge, having met with him fire a pistol on on the beach, ducked him, and were in the act of authorized to every intru sion of his house. The law re. gards an at tack on a dwelling in the night as the police. sion or inva- throwing him into the sea, when he was rescued by The boatmen, however, as he was going away, called to him that they would come at night and pull his house down. His house was equivalent to about a mile from Scarborough. In the middle of aman's per the night, a great number of persons came about his house, singing songs of menace, and using violent language, indicating that they had come with person is at no friendly or peaceable intention; and Meade, un an assault on son. No words or singing are equivalent to an assault. Where a tacked, he is not justified in der an apprehension, as he alleged, that his life killing if less violent means and property were in danger, fired a pistol, by which Law, one of the party, was killed. The will avert the danger. only evidence against Belt was, that he was in the house when the pistol was fired; and a voice having been heard to cry out "fire," it was assumed that it was his voice. J. Williams and Vernon, for the prisoners, endeavoured to shew that Meade did not fire the pistol until a stone had been thrown, by which a window in his house was broken. Per Holroyd, J., to the jury-"A civil trespass will not excuse the firing a pistol at a trespasser in sudden resentment or anger. If a person takes forcible possession of another man's close, so as to be guilty of a breach of the peace, it is more than a trespass. So, if a man with force invades and enters into the dwelling of another. But a man is not authorized to fire a pistol on every intrusion or invasion of his house. He ought, if he has a reasonable opportunity, to endeavour to remove him without having recourse to the last extremity. But, the making an attack upon a dwelling, and especially at night, the law regards as equivalent to an assault on a man's person; for a man's house is his castle, and therefore, in the eye of the law, it is equivalent to an assault; but no words or singing are equivalent to an assault, nor will they authorize an assault in return. If you are satisfied that there was nothing but the song, and no appearance of further violence-if you believe that there was no reasonable ground for apprehending further danger, but that the pistol was fired for the purpose of killing, then it is murder. There are cases where a person in the heat of blood kills another, that the law does not deem it murder, but lowers the offence to manslaughter; as where a party coming up by way of making an attack, and, without there being any previous apprehension of danger, the party attacked, instead of having recourse to a more reasonable and less violent mode of averting it, having an opportunity so to do, fires on the impulse of the moment. If, in the present case, you are of opinion that the prisoners were really attacked, and that Law and his party were on the point of breaking in, or likely to do so, and execute the threats of the day before, they were perhaps justified in firing as they did-If you are of opinion that the prisoners intended to fire over and frighten, then the case is one of manslaughter, and not of self-defence*. "With regard to Belt there is no evidence one way or the other, whether there was or was not any other person in the house with Meade; although there is no doubt that he was there, you are not, however, to assume, in a case where a man's life is Sir Michael Forster, in his Crown Law, 273, says, "where one manifestly intendeth and endeavoureth, by violence or surprise, to commit a known felony upon a man's person, (as to rob, or murder, or to commit a rape upon a woman), or upon a man's habitation or property, (as arsonor burglary), the person assaulted may repel force by force, and even his servant then attendant on him, or any other person present, may interpose for preventing mischief; and, in the latter case, the owner, or any part of his family, or even a lodger with him, may kill the assailants, for preventing the mischief." at stake, that, because a man's voice was heard, it was the voice of Belt." The jury found Meade guilty of manslaughter, and acquitted Belt. Meade was sentenced to two years' imprisonment in York Castle. Edward Forster's Case. LANCASTER Sp. Assizes, 1825. Prisoner was charged on the coroner's inquisi- An officer tion with murder. The prisoner was an excise offi must not kill for an escape where party is a misdemean If officer has reasonable ground for ap prehending his life to be in danger, or cer, and, being in the execution of his office, had in custody for seized, with the assistance of another person, two smugglers whom he detected in the act of landing whiskey from the Scottish shore, contrary to law. It appeared that the deceased had surrendered himself quietly into the hands of the prisoner, but shortly afterwards, when the prisoner was off guard, he assaulted him violently with an stick, which cut his head severely in several places; bodily harm, he may have recourse to a deadly weahis pon, if no ash other at hand. So, if he has been render- less deadly mutual blows the officer that he lost much blood from the wounds, and was ble of using a greatly weakened in the struggle which succeeded; that, fearing the smuggler would overpower him, an affray, and and having no other means of defending himself, in heat, and he discharged a pistol at the deceased's legs, in the kill, it will be manslaughhope of deterring him from any further attack; that ter, although the discharge did not take effect, and the smuggler ty was originprepared to make another assault; that, seeing this, something the prisoner warned him to keep off, telling him he the other par ally doing unlawful. |