Commonwealth v. Mohn

• Citation: 52 Pa. 243
• Court: Pennsylvania Supreme Court
• Decision Date: 15 May 1866
• Parties: Commonwealth <I>versus</I> Mohn.

52 Pa. 243

Commonwealth versus Mohn.

Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.

May 15, 1866.

CERTIORARI to the Court of Quarter Sessions of Northampton county.

C. G. Beitel, District Attorney, and O. H. Meyers, for the Commonwealth, cited James v. Commonwealth, 12 S. & R. 236; Barker v. Commonwealth, 7 Harris 413; Penal Code, § 73, Purd. 280; Id., § 178.

E. J. Fox, for defendant in error.—As to first count the offence is not defined with certainty: 2 Bishop's Crim. L., § 147; Commonwealth v. Hutchinson, 3 Am. L. Reg. 114; 1 Bishop's Crim. L., § 55; 4 Bl. Com. 306; Whart. Crim. L., §§ 285, 287, 288.

The spirit of our law will not permit a woman to be convicted

for words or acts which in a man would be held harmless: James v. Commonwealth, 12 S. & R. 226.

The offence is obsolete: 4 Bl. Com. 3; James v. Commonwealth, supra; Report of Commissioners to revise Penal Code 11.

As to the second count the matters are not stated with the requisite particularity; Commonwealth v. Sharpless, 2 S. & R. 91; Barker's Case, 7 Harris 412: 1 Whart. Crim. Law, § 6.

The place where the words were uttered is not stated with the particularity that will enable the defendant to prepare her defence.

The opinion of the court was delivered, May 15th 1866, by WOODWARD, C. J.

The defendant was indicted in two counts: the first of which charged that she was on a day certain and divers other days, a common scold and disturber of the peace of the neighbourhood, and of all good citizens of the Commonwealth, &c., to the common nuisance of the citizens of the Commonwealth; and in the second count she is charged with being an evil-disposed person, and, contriving and intending the morals as well of youth as of divers other citizens of this Commonwealth to debauch and corrupt, did openly and publicly with a loud voice, in the public highways, wicked, scandalous and infamous words utter in the hearing of citizens, to the common nuisance of all good citizens, &c.

Both counts were on motion quashed, because the offences charged are unknown to the laws of Pennsylvania, and because they are not stated with sufficient particularity as to time, place and circumstances.

A common nuisance is the offence charged in each count, and it cannot be denied that that is an offence at common law. In James v. The Commonwealth, 12 S. & R. 236, it was ruled that a common scold is indictable and punishable as a common nuisance by fine and imprisonment, but not by the old and obsolete penalty of the ducking or cucking stool. On this latter point the late Judge Duncan went at large into all the curious learning on the subject; but while he intimated his personal dissatisfaction with the doctrine that the offence was indictable at all, he expressed his concurrence with the other members of the court that...