Case Name: Daniel Newton Jr. vs. The Commonwealth
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts
Decision Date: 1844-10
Citations: 8 Met. 535
Docket Number: 
Parties: Daniel Newton Jr. vs. The Commonwealth.
Judges: 
Reporter: Massachusetts Reports
Volume: 49
Pages: 535–536

Head Matter:
Daniel Newton Jr. vs. The Commonwealth.
A sentence of a convict to additional punishment, on an information which sets for1 three previous convictions and sentences, is valid, if two of those sentences were valid, although one of them was erroneous and has been reversed.
Writ of error to reverse a sentence of the municipal court, rendered at August term 1844, on an information which set forth three previous convictions of the plaintiff in error, and three sentences to punishment in the state prison, by imprisonment therein, in each case, for a period not less than one year. The additional sentence was, that the said Newton be confined to hard labor in the state prison for the term of one year. It was assigned for error, that one of the convictions set forth in said information was erroneous.
G. Bemis, for the plaintiff in error.
Wilkinson, (District Attorney,) for the Commonwealth.

Opinion:
Shaw, C. J.
The case was this: The plaintiff in error was sentenced on an information, in the municipal court, to an additional punishment, as one who had been twice before convicted and sentenced. The information set forth three previous convictions. One of them was upon a judgment which has been reversed, on a separate writ of error, at the present term. Whereupon, the convict contends that the judgment on the information is erroneous, and may be reversed on this writ. Hutchinson v. Commonwealth, 4 Met. 359. But the court are of opinion that, as the law (Rev. Sts. pp. 810, 811,) requires only two previous convictions, and awards no additional punishment for any number of convictions exceeding two, the judg ment is well sustained by the two valid convictions, and is not erroneous.
Judgment affirmed.