Commonwealth v. Curley

Decided January 15, 1869

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1869-01-15

Indictment, under the Gen. Sts. c. 178, § 46, charging an escape from the house of correction at South Boston. At the trial in the superior court, before Putnam, J., the fol-owing facts appeared: The house of correction was originally provided with a yard properly inclosed, appurtenant to the house.* A few years since, a public street was cut through this yard, 'and fences were built along the line of the street, so as to form two yards, separated by the street.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1869-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently March 1980

4 state decisions

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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Colt, J.

¶1Under the provisions of the Gen. Sts. c. 178, §§ 6, 7, the whole yard of a house of correction, though divided by a public street, against which it is suitably fenced and protected, must be regarded as adjoining or appurtenant within the terms of the statute. It is not required that the yard shall be immediately connected with the house itself. If it be a place entirely devoted to the purpose, sufficiently secure and suitably protected from all persons without, it is sufficient. The word appurtenant is not used in a technical sense in the statute, for land cannot be appurtenant to land, strictly speaking.

¶2Judgment upon the verdict.