Superior Court of Delaware, 1864

State v. Bradley

Superior Court of Delaware · Decided November 5, 1864 · <italic>The Court</italic> so charged, <italic>Gilpin, C. J.,</italic>

1 Houston 164

Counsel

Gray, for the defendant. The proof cannot sustain the indictment and the defendant should be acquitted, for the law requires that the property should be laid in the person then in possession of it suo jure, in all cases of arson, or felony by statute analogous to it, as well as of burglary and larceny. 3 Greenl. Ev., Sec. 54. 2 Russ. on Crimes, 488, 495. 4 Black. Com., 221.

Opinion of the Court

The defendant, Thomas D. Bradley, was indicted for burning a barn which was alleged in the indictment to be the property of John Pilling, but the proof was that although the barn and the farm on which it stood belonged to him, they were in the possession of his father, as his tenant, at the time the barn was burnt. *Page 165 adding, such is the common law in regard to the crime of arson, or the malicious burning of a dwelling-house, or any out-house parcel of it, and it had always been recognized as the law also in indictments for statutory offenses, or felonies analogous to it; for in the latter offenses the analogies of the common law in this respect have always been followed. *Page 166

Case-law data current through December 31, 2025. Source: CourtListener bulk data.