Case Name: Commonwealth versus John Neal and Elizabeth Neal
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts
Decision Date: 1813-05
Citations: 9 Tyng 152
Docket Number: 
Parties: * Commonwealth versus John Neal and Elizabeth Neal
Judges: 
Reporter: Massachusetts Reports
Volume: 10
Pages: 162–163

Head Matter:
* Commonwealth versus John Neal and Elizabeth Neal
A feme covert is not indictable for an assault and battery, committed in the company and by the command of her husband.
The defendants, being husband and wife, were indicted, at the last October term in this county, for an assault and battery. Upon a trial, which was had at the same term before Thatcher, J., the jury found the said John guilty; and as to the said Elizabeth, they found specially, — “ that she committed the assault and battery charged in the indictment, in company with, and commanded by the said John Neal, her husband. And if this in law will make her guilty, then the jury find her guilty ; but if being in company with and commanded by her husband will justify or excuse her in law, then the jury find that the said Elizabeth Neal is not guilty.”
The indictment was continued to this term for judgment upon this verdict; and now
Whitman argued that the wife, acting under the direction and coercion of the husband, was not personally liable to conviction and punishment, and this immunity extends to every case, except those of keeping a bawdy house and a gaming house. The jury have found that the wife, in this case, acted by the command of her husband.
Morton, ('Attorney-General,) for the commonwealth.
The law excuses the wife only in cases where she may be supposed ignorant of the criminality of the act; as in larceny, &c., she may not know in whom the property of the goods is. The husband’s commands are no excuse for her where she must know, as well as he, that the action is wrong; as in the case at bar, where she could not be ignorant that it was unjustifiable to beat and wound her neighbor.
4 Black. Comm. 28.— 1 Mass. Rep. 391, 476. — 10 Mod. 63, 335. — 1 Salk. 384
1 Hawk. P. C. c. 1, § 9, 13. — See also Black. Comm., ubi sup., and Christian’s notes.

Opinion:
Curia.
The general doctrine is, that a feme covert incurs no legal guilt by the commission of civil offences, by the coercion of her husband, or even when in his presence. To this general rule, there are certain exceptions, as of crimes forbidden by the law of nature, which are mala in fe, and some where the wife may be presumed the principal agent. The case at bar is not within the exceptions, and Elizabeth Neal is not guilty, and must therefore be discharged,
ADDITIONAL NOTE.
[A married woman, living apart from her husband, may be indicted alone, and pun ished, for keeping a house of ill fame.— Com. vs. Lewis, 1 Metc. 181. — F. H.]
[In Sikes vs. Johnson M., (16 Mass. Rep. 389,) it was held, that a feme covert might be charged as a trespasser for having procured the trespass to be committed, though not present when it was done. — Ed.]