Commonwealth v. Linton

• Decision Date: 01 January 1820
• Parties: The Commonwealth v. Laurence Linton
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court

4 Va. 205

The Commonwealth v. Laurence Linton

Supreme Court of Virginia

January 1, 1820

The prisoner was indicted at the Superior Court of Law for the county of Ohio of the murder of Joseph M'Caughy: the Indictment charged that the mortal stroke was given at Ohio county, in this State, and that the said M'Caughy died of his wounds in Jefferson county, State of Ohio. The prisoner being led to the bar, moved the Court to quash the Indictment: 1. Because no previous enquiry has been had before an Examining Court, into the facts with which he is now charged, or of the offence for which he now stands indicted; but that so far as he was tried or examined before the Justices of the said county of Ohio, summoned and convened for that purpose, it was for an offence of a different character, and growing out of a part of the facts in the said Indictment alleged. 2. Because the said Indictment charges a mortal wound, given at the said county of Ohio, and that the death of the said Joseph was occasioned thereby, in the county of Jefferson, in the State of Ohio which facts, if true, do not constitute a felonious homicide within the Commonwealth of Virginia, or punishable by its Laws. 3. Because the said Defendant was remanded by the Examining Court, to be tried for feloniously inflicting on a certain Joseph M'Caughy, sundry wounds, with a plane bit with intent to maim, disfigure, disable, or kill him the said Joseph, and cannot, under that examination, and decision of the Examining Court, be now indicted and tried for the offence charged against him in the said Indictment. The record of the Examining Court being produced, supported the allegations of the prisoner. Whereupon the Court adjourned to this Court the following questions: " 1. Whether the prisoner, on being charged before the Examining Court with inflicting sundry wounds on the said Joseph, with intent to maim, disable, disfigure, or kill him, the said Joseph, and remanded for trial before this Court, for the said offence can be indicted and tried for the murder of the said Joseph on his afterwards dying of the said wounds, so inflicted without a further examination before the County Court? 2. Can the prisoner be tried and convicted of the murder of which he stands charged under the Indictment, alleging the mortal stroke to be given in the county of Ohio, in the State of Virginia, and the death of the person stricken at the county of Jefferson, in the ...