Case Name: Commonwealth vs. John Madden
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts
Decision Date: 1854-09
Citations: 1 Gray 486
Docket Number: 
Parties: Commonwealth vs. John Madden.
Judges: 
Reporter: Massachusetts Reports
Volume: 67
Pages: 486–487

Head Matter:
Commonwealth vs. John Madden.
On the trial of an indictment for being a common seller of intoxicating liquors, evidence that the defendant, during a part of the time covered by the indictment, kept a public house, and had upon it an innkeeper’s sign, is irrelevant and inadmissible in support of the charge in the indictment.
Indictment charging the defendant with being a common seller of intoxicating liquors. At the trial in the court of common pleas, before Byington, J. the district attorney offered ^ evidence, to show that, during a part of the time covered by the indictment, the defendant kept a public house, and had upon it an innkeeper’s sign. The defendant objected to the admission of the evidence as irrelevant and incompetent; but the objection -was overruled, and the evidence admitted. To such admission the defendant, being convicted, alleged exceptions.
E. W. Bond, for the defendant.
J. H. Clifford, (Attorney General,) for the Commonwealth.

Opinion:
Thomas, J.
We cannot perceive that this evidence had any tendency to establish the guilt of the defendant.
Under the statute of. 1837, c. 242, innholders may be licensed, but without authority to sell intoxicating liquors. The keeping of a public house is a lawful and respectable business, and the fact that a man is engaged in it has no tendency to show that he has violated any law of the Commonwealth. The innkeeper is licensed to keep his inn without authority to sell, and the presumption is that men obey the laws, and not that they violate them.
Incidentally, on the trial of an indictment, the fact may appear, in what business a man is engaged. But it is obvious from the distinct offer of the evidence, persisted in after the objection of the defendant, that it was relied upon as proof of the charge contained in the indictment. For this purpose it was incompetent, and calculated to prejudice the cause of the defendant. Exceptions sustained.