Case Name: Commonwealth vs. Patrick Fortune & another
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts
Decision Date: 1870-11
Citations: 105 Mass. 592
Docket Number: 
Parties: Commonwealth vs. Patrick Fortune & another.
Judges: 
Reporter: Massachusetts Reports
Volume: 105
Pages: 592–593

Head Matter:
Commonwealth vs. Patrick Fortune & another.
An indictment against three persons jointly for an attempt to commit larceny from the person of a fourth, which charges, as the overt act, that the three, with felonious intent, put “their hands ” into his pocket, may be sustained by proof that all three were participating in the act, though only one of them put his hand into the pocket.
Indictment charging that Patrick Fortune, John Scanlon and James McCabe, at Boston, on July 4, 1870, “ did attempt with force and arms feloniously to steal, take and carry away from the person of one Thomas Cusick the personal property of the said Cusick then and there in pocket and in his possession, and in such attempt did then and there do a certain overt act towards the commission of said offence, to wit, did then and there with force and arms, feloniously, and with intent then and there feloniously to steal, take and carry away the personal property of the said Cusick as aforesaid, then and there being in his pocket and on his person, thrust, insert, put and place their, said Patrick’s, John’s and James’s, hands into the pocket of the said Cusick without his knowledge and against his will, but said Patrick, John and James then and there did fail in the perpetration of said offence, and were intercepted and prevented in the execution of the same.”
At the trial in the superior court in Suffolk, before Wilkinson, J,, there was evidence that only one of the defendants put his hand into Cusick’s pocket; and the defendants contended that this was a variance; but the judge instructed the jury “ that if one of the defendants only laid his individual, hand on the person of the said Cusick, in the manner alleged and as otherwise alleged, and the other defendants were participating in the act, although neither placed his hand on the person of the said Cu-sick or near the person as alleged, a verdict of guilty would be warranted, if the evidence in other respects satisfied the allegations of the indictment beyond a reasonable doubt.” The jury returned a verdict of guilty against all the defendants, and they alleged exceptions.
C. H. Hudson & E. W. Sanborn, for the defendants.
C. Allen, Attorney General, for the Commonwealth.

Opinion:
Chapman, C. J.
It is very obvious that several persons may associate themselves together in an attempt to steal from one's person. In such cases, they are all principals, and may be jointly indicted. 1 Archb. Crbn. Proc. (7th Am. ed.) 315 and notes. Goal-heavers' ease, 1 Leach (4th ed.) 64. Though but one of them thrusts his hand into the pocket, all may be equally guilty; and though the indictment alleges that they all did so, yet proof that one did so is sufficient. The ruling was correct.
Exceptions overruled.