Case Name: Commonwealth vs. Samuel F. Davis
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts
Decision Date: 1858-10
Citations: 11 Gray 457
Docket Number: 
Parties: Commonwealth vs. Samuel F. Davis.
Judges: 
Reporter: Massachusetts Reports
Volume: 77
Pages: 457–458

Head Matter:
Commonwealth vs. Samuel F. Davis.
A complaint on St. 1855, c. 215, § 15, for unlawfully selling intoxicating liquors to one wno upon being arrested when intoxicated, has disclosed the defendant, is not invalidated by omitting to name such purchaser as a witness, as directed by § 23.
Complaint alleging that the defendant at New Bedford on the 26th of April 1858, “ without any legal authority therefor, did sell to one Martha A. Wilson spirituous and intoxicating liquors.”
At the trial in the court of common pleas in Bristol, before Sanger, J., Martha A. Wilson testified that she purchased rum of the defendant and paid for it, and was arrested and taken before the police court of New Bedford upon a complaint for drunkenness, and, when arraigned, disclosed where she purchased the liquor and was discharged, and the officer then made this complaint against the defendant.
The defendant moved the court to quash the complaint, because it appeared that it was made upon the evidence of a disclosing witness under the St. of 1855, c. 215, § 23, and therefore could not be maintained for want of an allegation that Wilson was “ one of the witnesses in the said complaint.” But the judge declined so to do. The defendant, being convicted, alleged exceptions.
E. L. Barney, for the defendant.
S. Jff. Phillips, (Attorney General,) for the Commonwealth.

Opinion:
Bigelow, J.
A motion to quash is addressed to the discretion of the court and no exception lies to the mode of its exercise. Commonwealth v. Eastman, 1 Cush. 189. But, aside from this, the complaint was in due form, and charged the defendant, in apt and technical language, with an offence under St. 1855, c. 215, § 15.
The provision in § 23, which requires, where a complaint is made by an officer upon the disclosure of a person arrested in a state of intoxication, that the person so arrested " shall be named as one of the witnesses in the said complaint," is directory only, and is designed to guide officers and magistrates in the perform anee of the duties imposed on them under that section of the statute. But it is not intended to change the form of complaints or indictments, or to require any new or special allegations against the person charged with the offence of selling liquor contrary to law. The offence would be the same, whether the liquor was sold to a person who drank it till he was intoxicated, or to one who used it in moderation, and it may in either case be set out in the same terms. Exceptions overruled.