Case ID: mass_128/html/0414-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "By the Court.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Commonwealth vs. Ann McKiernan.
    Middlesex.
    Jan. 27.
    Feb. 7, 1880.
    Morton & Soule, JJ., absent.
    A complaint, under the St. of 1875, c. 99, averred that the defendant, at a place and on a day named, “ that day being the Lord’s day, unlawfully did sell intoxicating liquors to a person, whose name is to the complainant unknown, the said defendant not having then and there any license, appointment or authority according to law, to make such sale of intoxicating liquors on the said Lord’s day.” Held, that the complaint was in due form, and was supported by proof of any sale that was unlawful under the statute.
    Complaint, under the St. of 1875, c. 99, averring that the defendant, at Lowell, on August 31, 1879, “ that day being the Lord’s day, unlawfully did sell intoxicating liquors to a person, whose name is to your complainant unknown, the said Mc-Kiernan not having then and there any license, appointment or authority according to law, to make such sale of intoxicating liquors on the said Lord’s day.”
    At the trial in the Superior Court, before Gardner, J., the government introduced evidence tending to show a sale of ale by the defendant to a person unknown, on the day alleged in the complaint; but did not put in evidence tó show that the defendant had, at the date of the offence, any license under the above statute.
    The defendant asked the judge to rule that the complaint was not sufficient to authorize a conviction without proof that the defendant, at the time of the alleged offence, had some one of the licenses mentioned in said statute. But the judge refused so to rule; and ruled that no proof of any license was necessary to sustain a conviction under the complaint.
    The jury returned a verdict of guilty; and the defendant alleged exceptions.
    
      A. G. Lamson, for the defendant.
    
      G. Marston, Attorney General, for the Commonwealth.
   By the Court.

The complaint was in due form, and was supported by proof of any sale that was unlawful under the statute. St. 1875, c. 99, § 1. Commonwealth v. Davis, 121 Mass. 352. Commonwealth v. Hoyer, 125 Mass. 209.

Exceptions overruled.