Case ID: mass_115/html/0103-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "\n      By the Court.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Commonwealth vs. John Kelleher.
    Middlesex.
    March 31.
    April 10, 1874
    Ames & Devens, JJ., absent.
    Evidence that a police officer of the town of N. sometimes while on duty slept in the police station there; that he had a room in N. where he sometimes slept and also another room there at the house of his brother where he kept his clothes, and that he claimed to be an inhabitant of N., is sufficient to warrant the jury in finding that he was an inhabitant of that town, although he worked and boarded in the town of W. and was a police officer of that town.
    Indictment for an assault and battery upon Frank B. Hinds and resisting him in the discharge of his duty as a police officer of the town of Newton.
    At the trial in the Superior Court, before Bacon, J., the jury found the defendant guilty, and the following bill of exceptions was allowed :
    “ Hinds was called as a witness for the government, and on his direct examination testified that he resided in Newton, and produced a certificate signed by the selectmen of Newton appointing him a police officer without pay. On cross-examination he testified that he held a similar appointment for the town of Water-town ; that at and about the time of the alleged assault he worked in Watertown; that he boarded in Watertown, and slept sometimes while on duty in the police station in Newton, and that he had another room in Newton in which he sometimes slept and also a room at the house of his brother in Newton in which he kept his clothes, and that he claimed to be an inhabitant of Newton. Upon this evidence the counsel for the defendant asked the court to rule as a matter of law that Hinds could not legally be a police officer of Newton. But the court declined so to rule, and instructed the jury that to be a police officer of Newton he must oe an inhabitant of Newton, and left the question whether he was such inhabitant to the jury to determine, with instructions, to vhich no exception was taken, as to what constitutes an inhalv itant of a town.” The defendant excepted to the above rulings.
    
      J. Rutter, for the defendant,
    cited Abington v. North Bridge water, 23 Pick. 170.
    
      C. R. Train, Attorney General, W. G. Colburn, Assistant Attorney General, for the Commonwealth.
   By the Court.

The evidence warranted the jury in finding that the domicil of Hinds was in Newton.

Exceptions overruled.