Case ID: va_4/html/0204-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Per Curiam.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

*The Commonwealth v. Jerry Mann.
    Criminal Law Rape —indictment.—In an Indictment against a black man, for feloniously attempting to ravish a white woman, the Indictment is bad, even after verdict, unless it aver that she is a white woman.
    This was an adjourned Case from the Superior Court of Botetourt. The prisoner was a black man, held as a slave, but he had instituted a suit to recover his freedom, and; therefore, according to Daw, was entitled to be tried as a free man, for any offence with which he was charged. He was indicted, tried, and'convicted, in the Superior Court, of feloniously making an assault upon a woman, with intent to ravish her. The Daw declares, that if a slave shall attempt to ravish a white woman, he shall be adjudged a felon. There were several questions adjourned to this Court, but there was only one point decided, which is stated in the opinion of the Court.
    
      
      See monographic note on “ Indictments, Informa-tions and Presentments ” appended to Boyle v. Com., 14 Gratt. 674.
    
   Per Curiam.

“The Court is unanimously of opinion, that the judgment in this Case ought to be arrested, and stayed, because it is no where in the Indictment stated, that Mary M’Causland was a white woman.”