Bayard’s Notebook, 85[*]
Court of Quarter Sessions of Delaware, Kent County.
May, 1794.
Indictment for an assault and battery upon Nathan Keach, a white man.
Page 360
David Hut, a negro man, was offered as a witness for the defendant.
Bayard, for the State, objected to the competency of the witness on the ground of the Act of Assembly, February, 1787 [2 Del. Laws 887], and cited Collins v. Hall, ante. Miller, for defendant, relied on the case of the State v. Bender, ante, and stated that Hut was the only witness present at the transaction.
[PER] CURIAM. Collins v. Hall has no application to this case; the State v. Bender was decided on the principle of necessity.
The witness is not seeking redress and therefore not within the clause in the Act of Assembly relied on by the court in the State v. Bender. We consider him incompetent on the ground of the Act of Assembly.