Case ID: mass_116/html/0341-01.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. James Kelley.
    Essex.
    November 4.
    5, 1874.
    Ames & Devens, JJ., absent.
    Upon the issue whether the defendant was at a time alleged in the indictment the keeper of a common nuisance under the Gen. Sts. e. 87, §§ 6, 7, evidence is admissible that the defendant sold liquor in the tenement on a day certain about eight weeks before the first date alleged in the indictment, and had gone in and out of the tenement at various other times between that day and the first date alleged in the indictment.
    Indictment on the Gen. Sts. c. 87, §§ 6, 7, charging the defendant with keeping á common nuisance, to wit, a tenement in Danvers, used for the illegal sale and illegal keeping of intoxicating liquors, on June 1, 1874, and on divers other days between that day and October 19, 1874.
    At the trial in the Superior Court, before Allen, J., the government, to prove that the defendant was keeper of the house in question, asked a witness if he saw the defendant at the house before June 1, 1874. This was objected to, but the witness was allowed to answer that he saw the defendant at said house on April 4,1874. The witness was then asked if he purchased anything of the defendant from behind the bar at the house on said April 4. This question was objected to by the defendant, but the witness was allowed to answer, and replied in the affirmative. The witness also testified that he had seen the defendant go in and out of the said house several times after April 4. There was also evidence tending to show that during the time alleged in the indictment the defendant was in the room in question, and that he was keeper of the same. The defendant was found guilty, and alleged exceptions.
    
      C. A. Benjamin, for the defendant.
    Evidence of sales from behind the bar in the tenement alleged, nearly two months before the time of the offence as alleged in the indictment, was inadmissible as tending to prejudice and mislead the jury.
    
      C. R. Train, Attorney General, for the Commonwealth.
   By the Court.

The evidence objected to was competent upon the question whether the defendant kept the house at the time alleged in the indictment. Commonwealth v. Stoehr, 109 Mass. 365. Commonwealth v. Dearborn, Ib. 368.

Exceptions overruled.