Absurdities under the Fictions of Old Law

Apparently, the territorial limits of grand juries and the forms of old law in England "led to an immunity from indictment for such crimes as were begun in one county and consummated in another." John Proffatt, A Treatise on Trial by Jury, ch. 2, pt. 1, § 54, at 84. Blackstone recounts one instance where "a man was wounded in one county and died in another, [and] the offender was at common law indictable in neither, because no complete act of felony was done in any one of them." 2 William Blackstone, Commentaries, bk. 4, ch. 23, at 303 (and going on to say that by "statute 2 & 3 Edw. VI. c. 24, he is now indictable in the county where the party died”).