The Defendant was indicted at Hillsborough Superior Court, April Term, 1800, for an assault upon one Absalom Knight, with an intent to kill and murder, and upon the trial of the issue of traverse, the Jury found the Defendant not guilty of an assault “with an intent to murder, but guilty of an assault, and the Court fined him twenty shillings.” The question reserved for the consideration of the judges in this case was, whether, as the defendant had been indicted for an assault, with an intent to murder, and the Jury had found him not guilty of an intent to murder, but guilty of an assault, had the Superior Court jurisdiction of the offence found by the Jury. The doubt as to jurisdiction arose from the sec. 8, ch. 3 of the Acts of 1790, Iredell's Rev. page 696—which enacts, that all indictments for assaults, batteries and petit larcenies, and actions for slander, shall in future originate in the County Courts of Pleas and Quarter-Sessions only.
Per curiam—
The Superior Court has jurisdiction of the offence charged in the indictment, and on the finding of the Jury, there ought to be judgment for the State. Judgment for the State.
Judge Johnston
observed in this cafe, that the defendant might have pleaded that the assault charged, was a common assault, and traversed the intent to murder, that therefore the Court had not jurisdiction, &c.