Case Name: Commonwealth vs. William Clark
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts
Decision Date: 1849-11
Citations: 4 Cush. 596
Docket Number: 
Parties: Commonwealth vs. William Clark.
Judges: 
Reporter: Massachusetts Reports
Volume: 58
Pages: 596–597

Head Matter:
Commonwealth vs. William Clark.
In a complaint for a criminal charge' before a magistrate, the year of the alleged offence may be stated by means of the letters A. D., followed by words expressing the year, and the word “ and” may be expressed by the sign “&."
The defendant, having been convicted before a magistrate on a complaint for an assault and battery, appealed to the court of common pleas, where he was tried before Hoar, J., and convicted, and then moved in arrest of judgment. The judge overruled the motion, and the defendant excepted.
The grounds of the motion were: 1st. That the time of the alleged offence was stated in the complaint as “the twelfth day of September, A. D. eighteen hundred and forty-nine ; ” and, 2d. That the word and ” was frequently omitted in material parts of the complaint, and its place supplied by the abbreviation “
A. Holbrook, for the defendant.
Clifford, attorney general, for the commonwealth.

Opinion:
By the court.
We are of opinion, that in a complaint before a magistrate, the letters A. D., preceding the words expressing the vear, are sufficiently certain, having acquired an established use in the English language; and also that the figure may be used in writing to express the conjunction " and." Exceptions overruled.