State v. Cooper
This text of 16 Vt. 551 (State v. Cooper) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Vermont primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.
Opinion
The opinion of the court was delivered by
The respondent was indicted for burglary, and was convicted on the second count, — which charges him, in [554]*554substance, with breaking and entering a dwelling house in the night time, with intent to commit adultery.
Our statute makes it burglary for any one, in the night time, to break and enter any dwelling house, &c., with intent to commit the crime of “murder, rape, robbery, larceny, or any other felony.” Adultery was not a felony at common law, nor a crime to be punished in the common law courts. Neither does our statute make it felony. Nor does it come within any definition of felony, which can be found. Until the legislature think proper to declare the transaction, of which the respondent was found guilty, an offence, we cannot determine it so to be.
The judgment of the county court is reversed, and judgment arrested.
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16 Vt. 551, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-cooper-vt-1844.