Burning One’s Own House.
The Supreme Court of Maine recently considered the question whether one who sets fire to his own honse can be convicted of arson. The evidence showed that the defendant set fire to a dwelling house at the instance of the owner, and for her benefit, in order that she might procure the amount for which it was insured. The court held that the indictment was not sustained, and that arson cannot, under the common law, or any statute following that law, be committed by a person in respect to his own property. Arson, by the law, is an offence against the security of the dwelling house. It is described by Lord Coke to be the malicious and voluntary’ burning of the house of another by night or by day. It has been said that a wife who bums her husband’s house is not guilty of arson. The statute in Maine follows the common law, but in New York, where the willfully setting fire to or burning any inhabited dwelling house is made arson, it has been held that burning one’s own house was sufficient to constitute that crime. But previous to this decision it has been held that it was necessary, to constitute arson in the first degree, that the house be the property of another. In England, Parliament has so modified the law that ownership is now immaterial. In the principal case the defendant, in committing the offense, acted as the agent of the owner. The same question arose in a Tennessee case, and it was held that it was no arson to procure one’s own house to be burned, and that the guilt of the agent was only co-extensive with that of the principal. In Michigan it has been held that a husband living with his wife, and having a rightful possession jointly with her of a dwelling house which she owns and they both occupy, is not guilty of arson by the common law in burning such dwelling house, and this rule is not changed by a statute securing the wife her separate property.
