State v. Carney
| Decision Date | 08 June 1903 |
| Citation | 69 N.J.L. 478,55 A. 44 |
| Parties | STATE v. CARNEY. |
| Court | New Jersey Supreme Court |
(Syllabus by the Court.)
Error to Court of Quarter Sessions, Essex County.
Frank H. Carney was convicted of an attempt to commit suicide, and brings error. Affirmed.
Argued February term, 1903, before the CHIEF JUSTICE and HENDRICKSON, PITNEY, and FORT, JJ.
Hampson & Parry, for plaintiff in error.
Chandler W. Riker and Louis Hood, for the State.
The plaintiff in error was convicted in the Essex county quarter sessions upon an indictment alleging that he "did unlawfully administer and cause to be taken by himself Into his stomach a deadly quantity of a certain deadly poison called 'turpeth mineral,' with intent himself then and there, feloniously and of his malice aforethought, to kill and murder," etc.
There is but one question in this case: Is it a crime to attempt suicide in this state? Section 215 of "An act for the punishment of crimes" (revision of 1898), approved June 14, 1898 (Laws 1898, p. 854), enacts as follows: It will thus be seen, as there is no independent enactment making attempt at suicide a crime that whether it is a crime in this stat' will depend upon whether or not it was a crime at common law.
Mr. Bishop in his New Criminal Law (volume 2, § 1187) asks and answers the question thus: Selfmurder, like any other murder, was a common-law felony 1 Hale, P. C. 411; 1 East, P. C. 219; Rex v. Russell, 1 Moody, 356; Bishop's New Criminal Law, vol. 1, § 511. Attempt at suicide was an indictable offense at common law. Regina v. Doody, 6 Cox, Crim. Cases, 463; Regina v. Buyers, 9 Cox, Crim. Cases, 247.
It is contended in the brief of the plaintiff in error that the cases just cited to sustain the statement that an attempt at suicide was criminal at common law were decided long after this country adopted the common law of England, and that by our first Constitution it was the common law of England as it then existed, and not as declared by subsequent decisions, which became the common law of this state. Conceding this position to be correct, that does not affect the force of these decisions. They hold that it has always been the common law of England that one guilty of suicide or attempt at suicide was felo de se. That suicide was a felony at common law, and...
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...requires the commission of an offense by a principal. See People v. Kelly, 423 Mich. 261, 378 N.W.2d 365 (1985).72 See State v. Carney, 69 N.J.L. 478, 480, 55 A. 44 (1903) (concluding that a failed attempt at suicide was criminal under the New Jersey saving clause, which made all "offenses ......
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Penney v. MUNICIPAL COURT OF CHERRY HILL, STATE OF NJ
...under section 2284 of this title." 2 In New Jersey suicide and attempted suicide were crimes at Common Law. See State v. Carney, 69 N.J.L. 478, 55 A. 44 (Sup.Ct. 1903) and State v. La Fayette, 15 N.J.Misc. 115, 188 A. 918 (C.P. 1937). In 1957, by enactment of the subject statute, the State ......
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Hughes v. New England Newspaper Pub. Co.
...a crime, for self destruction is a criminal offence in this Commonwealth. Commonwealth v. Mink, 123 Mass. 422, 25 Am.Rep. 109;State v. Carney, 69 N.J.L. 478,40 Vroom 478,55 A. 44. The publication of that statement gave the plaintiff no cause of action. One who defames the memory of the dead......
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...to choose to die. Attempted suicide was a crime at common law and was held to be a crime under N.J.S.A. 2A:85--1. State v. Carney, 69 N.J.L. 478, 55 A. 44 (Sup.Ct.1903); but see Campbell v. Supreme Conclave Improved Order Heptasophs, 66 N.J.L. 274, 283, 49 A. 550 (E. & A. 1901). It is now d......