OBREPTION, civil law. Surprise. Dig. 3,5,8,1. Vide Surprise.
OBSCENITY, crim. law. Such indecency as is calculated to promote the violation1 of the law, and the general corruption2 of morals.
2. The exhibition of an obscene picture is an indictable offence at common law, although not charged to have been exhibited in public, if it be averred3 that the picture, was exhibited to sundry4 persons for money. 2 Serg. Rawle, 91.
TO OBSERVE, civil law. To perform that which has been prescribed by some law or usage. Dig., 1, 3, 32.
OBSOLETE5. This term is applied6 to those laws which have lost their efficacy, without being repealed8,
2. A positive statute9, unrepealed, can never be repealed by non-user alone. 4 Yeates, Rep. 181; Id. 215; 1 Browne's Rep. Appx. 28; 13 Serg. Rawle, 447. The disuse of a law is at most only presumptive evidence that society has consented to such a repeal7; however this presumption10 may operate on an unwritten law, it cannot in general act upon one which remains12 as a legislative13 act on the statute book, because no presumption can set aside a certainty. A written law may indeed become obsolete when the object to which it was intended to apply, or the occasion for which it was enacted14, no longer exists. 1 P. A. Browne's R. App. 28. It must be a very strong case, says Chief Justice Tilghman, to justify15 the court in deciding, that an act standing16 on the statute book, unrepealed, is obsolete and invalid17. I will not say that such case may not exist-where there has been a non-user for a great number of years-where, from a change of times and manners, an ancient sleeping statute would do great mischief18, if suddenly brought into action-where a long, practice inconsistent with it has prevailed, and, specially19, where from other and latter statutes20 it might be inferred that in the apprehension21 of the legislature, the old one was not in force. 13 Serg. Rawle, 452; Rutherf. Inst. B. 2, c. 6, s. 19; Merl. Repert. mot Desuetude22.
OBSTRUCTING23 PROCESS. crim. law. The act by which one or more persons at- tempt24 to prevent, or do prevent, the execution of lawful25 process.
2. The officer must be prevented by actual violence, or by threatened violence, accompanied by the exercise of force, or by those having capacity to employ it, by which the officer is prevented from executing his writ11; the officer is not required, to expose his person by a personal conflict with the offender26. 2 Wash. C. C. R. 169. See 3 Wash. C. C. R. 335.
3. This is in offence against public justice of a very high and presumptuous27 nature; and more particularly so where the obstruction28 is of an arrest upon criminal process: a person opposing an arrest upon criminal process becomes thereby29 particeps criminis; that is, an accessary in felony, and a principal in high treason. 4 Bl. Com. 128; 2 Hawk30. c. 17, s. 1; l. Russ. on Cr. 360: vide Ing. Dig. 159; 2 Gallis. Rep. 15; 2 Chit. Criminal Law, 145, note a.
