1832. WALLIS'S Case. In Easter term, 1832, all THE JUDGES (except LORD LYNDHURST C. B. and TAUNTON J.) met and considered this case; and held that, as Wallis was the actual occupier, the statement was proper, and the conviction right. 1832. whilst in the act of being born, a mortal wound in the head, as soon as the head appears, and before the child has if the child is REX v. JOSEPH SENIOR. Giving a child, THE prisoner was tried and convicted before Mr. BARON BOLLAND, at the Spring assizes for the county of Chester, in the year 1832, upon an indictment which charged him with the manslaughter of the male infant child of Allen Hewitt and Alice his wife, at Stockport, on the 24th of March 1832, by mortally breathed, will, wounding the said child upon the head with a knife. The prisoner practised midwifery in the town of Stockport, and was called in, at about five in the morning of the 24th of March, to attend Alice Hewitt, who was taken in labour. At about seven in the evening of that day the head of the child became visible; and 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. be murder. It was submitted to the learned JUDGE by the counsel for the prisoner that the indictment was misconceived, though the facts would warrant an indictment in another form; and that the child being in ventre sa mère at the time the wound was given, the prisoner could not be guilty of manslaughter; and quoted 1 Russ. 424. The learned JUDGE did not consider the objections valid; and sentenced the prisoner to imprisonment for one year. Coke, 3 Inst. 50. All THE JUDGES (except LORD LYNDHURST C. B. and TAUNTON J.) considered this case at a meeting in Easter term, 1832; and held unanimously that the conviction was right. 1832. SENIOR'S REX v. JOHN TURNER. 1832. ment against an accessary, THE prisoner was tried before Mr. JUSTICE PATTE- On an indictSON, at the Spring assizes for the county of York, in the year 1832, upon an indictment which charged that the said John Turner, sixty sovereigns of the value of 607., of the goods and chattels of one Martha Clarke, by one Sarah Rich then lately before feloniously stolen, taken, and carried away, of the said Sarah Rich feloniously did receive, &c. Mrs. Clarke proved that above 200 sovereigns had been stolen out of her box, on Monday 22d or early in the morning of Tuesday 23d of August; and that Sarah Rich then lived with her as a servant. a confession cipal is not by the prinadmissible in prove the guilt of the evidence to principal; it must be proved aliunde, espe cially if the principal be alive. Semble, a conviction of upon a plea not be evi The counsel for the prosecution then proposed to the principal prove a confession of Sarah Rich made before a of guilty will magistrate, in the presence of the prisoner, in which she stated various facts implicating the prisoner and others as well as herself. The counsel for the prisoner objected that the confession of Sarah Rich, not upon her oath, was not dence against the accessary to prove the principal guilty. Nor, semble, will a conplea of not viction on a evidence against the prisoner; and cited Rex V. Appleby, coram HOLROYD J., 3 Stark. Rep. 33., and guilty. insisted that Sarah Rich should herself be called. 1832. TURNER'S Case. The learned JUDGE refused to receive as evidence any thing that was said by Sarah Rich respecting the prisoner, but admitted what she said respecting herself only; and it was this: "I had taken the key out of my mistress's pocket, and opened the box as we went to bed, the night before. From one of the bags of sovereigns I had taken out forty for myself, and about noon about fifty or sixty more." It was then proved that the prisoner, who was a poor man, had between fifty and sixty sovereigns in his pocket on the 25th of August; and that he had been talking at his own door with Sarah Rich on the morning of the 23d; that he was taken up on the 31st, and told the constable that he was sorry; that, when he received the money from Sally, he said, "Damn thee, thou'lt have us all hanged together." The prisoner was convicted and sentenced. Having since learned that a case occurred before Mr. BARON WOOD at York, where two persons were indicted together, one for stealing and the other for receiving, in which the principal pleaded guilty and the receiver not guilty, and that Mr. BARON WOOD refused to allow the plea of guilty to establish the fact of the stealing by the principal as against the receiver, the learned JUDGE thought it right to submit to the learned JUDGES the question, Whether he was right in admitting the confession of Sarah Rich in the present case. The learned JUDGE thought it right to add, that the prisoner, one Taylor, and Sarah Rich had immediately before been tried upon an indictment for burglary, and stealing other property in the house of Mrs. Clarke on the night of the 22d of August ; and that Taylor and Rich had been found guilty, but the prisoner had been acquitted, there being no proof of his presence. The learned JUDGE did not pass sentence upon Sarah Rich immediately; but a new jury was called, and the prisoner was tried as a receiver, so that either party might have called her as a witness. In Easter term, 1832, all THE JUDGES (except LORD LYNDHURST Č. B. and TAUNTON J.) met, and having considered this case, were unanimously of opinion that Sarah Rich's confession was no evidence against the prisoner; and many of them appeared to think, that had Sarah Rich been convicted, and the indictment against the prisoner stated, not her conviction, but her guilt, the conviction would not have been any evidence of her guilt, which must have been proved by other means; and the conviction was held wrong. 1832. TURNER'S REX v. GEORGE PROWES. 1832. be committed THE HE prisoner was tried and convicted before Mr. If a larceny SELWYN, K. C., at the Spring assizes for the county out of the of Dorset, in the year 1832, and ordered to be trans- kingdom, ported for seven years; but the execution of the the King's sentence was respited, in order that the opinion of the JUDGES might be taken on the case. though within dominions, bringing the things stolen into this The indictment charged the prisoner with stealing kingdom will at Dorchester, in the county of Dorset, a quantity of not make it larceny here. wearing apparel, the property of Thomas Cundy. The things had been taken by the prisoner from a box of the prosecutor's at St. Helier's, in the island of Jersey, while the prosecutor was absent at his work at a 1832, PROWES'S Case. short distance, and without his leave: they were shortly afterwards found in the possession of the prisoner at Weymouth, in the county of Dorset, where he had been apprehended on another charge. A doubt occurred whether the original taking was such whereof the common law could take cognizance; and, if not, whether the case fell within the statute 7 & 8 G. 4. c. 29. s. 76. ; or, in other words, whether the Island of Jersey could considered as part of the united kingdom, 2 Russell, 175. If the original taking be such whereof the common law cannot take cognizance, as if the goods be stolen at sea, the thief cannot be indicted in any county into which he may carry them, 3 Inst. 113., 1 Haw. P. C. 33. s. 92. A similar exception prevailed formerly, where the original taking was in Scotland or Ireland; and it appears to have been holden, that a thief who had stolen goods in Scotland, could not be indicted in the county of Cumberland, where he was taken with the goods. Rex v. Anderson and others, Carlisle Summer assizes, 1763; and before the JUDGES, November, 1763. 2 East, 772. c. 16. s. 156. This case was considered at a meeting of all THE JUDGES, (except LORD LYNDHURST C. B. and TAUNTON J.,) in Easter term, 1832; and they held unanimously that the conviction was wrong, and that the case was not within 7 & 8 G. 4. c. 29. s. 76. |