Oliver

Upon an indictment charging him with an assault with intent to commit rape upon a certain named woman on the high seas while on board of a certain named American vessel, the plaintiff was convicted by the verdict of a jury, upon which verdict judgment of imprisonment was entered against him by the court below, irom which judgment the case is brought here by writ of error.

The objections made on behalf of the plaintiff in error to the sufficiency of the proof to support the verdict are, we think, wholly without merit, for which reason we refrain from going into the details of the heinous offense. Nor do we think that the plaintiff in error has any just cause of complaint in respect to the action of the trial court in the matter of instructions to the jury. The charge of the learned judge was fair, and fully covered the crime charged and the case made by the evidence.

[1] But it is insisted on behalf of the plaintiff in error that the indictment was and is without any basis in law, for the asserted reason , that there is no statute of the United States defining rape or an attempt to commit that crime. It is, of course, readily conceded that the federal courts have no common-law…