Case ID: mass_93/html/0241-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Gray, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Commonwealth vs. James Greenen.
    Keeping and maintaining a tenement used for the illegal keeping of intoxicating liquors may be proved by evidence of repeated illegal sales in the tenement, while it was fitted up as a bar-room.
    Complaint charging that the defendant “ on the first day of June in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-five, and from that day to the day of the date of this complaint, did keep and maintain a certain tenement then and there used for the illegal keeping and sale of intoxicating liquors.” The date and jurat were in the same form as in the preceding case.
    At the trial in the superior court, Wilkinson, J. ruled that a continuing offence from the day named to the date of the complaint was properly charged, and admitted evidence covering the whole of that period.
    A witness testified that he knew the place where the defendant carried on his business; that it was a cellar fitted up as a bar room; that he had seen intoxicating liquors sold there by the defendant several times during the time covered by the comolaint, and had himself bought such liquors of the defendant three or four times during the period, and had seen others buy of him there. Another witness also testified to a single purchase by himself of the defendant during that period.
    The district attorney conceded that the complaint did not well charge the keeping of a tenement used for the illegal sale of intoxicating liquors; and the defendant contended that the evidence was insufficient to prove the charge of keeping a tenement used for the illegal keeping of such liquors, and asked the court so to rule. But the judge instructed the jury that illegal sales were evidence tending to show illegal keeping, and submitted the question to them on the evidence; and they returned a verdict of guilty, and the defendant alleged exceptions.
    
      J. Brown, for the defendant.
    
      Reed, A. G., for the Commonwealth.
   Gray, J.

The allegation of time warranted the introduction of evidence up to the date of the complaint, for the reasons stated in the case just decided of Commonwealth v. Walton, ante, 238.

The evidence of repeated sales of intoxicating liquors by the defendant in a cellar fitted up as a bar room was sufficient evidence to be submitted to the jury that the room was kept by him for the illegal keeping of intoxicating liquors, and was submitted to them under proper instructions.

Exceptions overruled.