Case ID: mass_86/html/0310-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Bigelow, C. J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Commonwealth vs. James Griffin & another.
    A verdict of guilty in an indictment against two persons for larceny in a building will not be set aside, because in connection with evidence that they were in the building together on the day of the larceny, evidence was also admitted that within an hour before the larceny was committed they, with another person whose name was not known, were seen walking in the street together towards the building, and were also seen with that person in the street the morning after; or because evidence was admitted that one of the defendants had on two previous occasions called himself by a fictitious name, in connection with evidence that the other defendant, on entering the building on the day of the larceny, inquired for a person bearing that name.
    Indictment for larceny of money in the shop of Edward F. Porter, in Boston, on the 2d of October 1861.
    At the trial in the superior court, evidence was introduced to show that on the day of the larceny George Doherty, one of the defendants, went into the counting-room of Porter and asked a clerk if Charles Wallace was employed there. The clerk replied that he was not. Further conversation passed between them, when Griffin, the other defendant, came in and asked to buy liquors, and went with the clerk into the sample room adjoining, and when they returned Doherty had left. It was soon after found that money was missing. It was contended by the government that these acts were in pursuance of an agreement between the defendants and another person whose name was unknown, who was to keep watch outside, while Griffin should distract the attention of the clerk, and Doherty should steal the money. And evidence was introduced, under objection, to show that within an hour before the larceny the defendants, with the other person, were seen walking in the street together towards the building in which the larceny was committed, and were also seen with that person in the street the morning after; and that Griffin, on the 30th of March previous, gave his name as Charles Wallace, in a store on Washington Street, in Boston.
    The jury returned a verdict of guilty, and the defendants alleged exceptions.
    
      C. H. Hudson & B. F. Russell, for the defendants.
    
      Foster, A. G., for the Commonwealth.
   Bigelow, C. J.

The evidence offered was clearly competent as forming a part of a chain of circumstantial proof tending to show the defendants’ guilt. Although the facts proved were of themselves slight and apparently immaterial, they might have an important bearing in connection with other evidence leading to the conclusion that the defendants were leagued together in the commission of the larceny. Exceptions overruled.