American Legal History

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  Rantoul’s efforts, however, were greatly undermined by Judge Thacher’s emotional charge to the jury. Thacher told the jury that if societies such as the Bootmaker’s Society were justified by the law and became common, it would “render property insecure, and make it the spoil of the multitude, would annihilate property, and involve society in a common ruin.”(1) Thacher also specifically rebutted Rantoul with regard to the status of the common law, stating that “conspiracy is an offence at common law, as adopted in Massachusetts, and by this decision and that of this court you must abide.”(2) Levy wrote that Thacher’s charge, “practically directed a verdict of guilty.”(3)

Notes

1 : Peter Oxenbridge Thacher, A Charge to the Grand Jury of the County of Suffolk, for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, at the Opening of the Municipal Court of the City of Boston, 19.

2 : Thacher, at 22

3 : Levy, at 186

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<		Given Thacher’s instructions, it is unsurprising that the jury convicted all seven defendants. Rantoul appealed the case to Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts.
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>		Given Thacher’s instructions, it is unsurprising that the jury convicted all seven defendants. Rantoul appealed the case to the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts.
 

Supreme Court Opinion


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