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119 Mass. 195

Commonwealth v. Holmes

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided November 29, 1875

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1875-11-29

Complaint to the First District Court of Bristol, alleging that the defendant, at Mansfield, on August 14, 1875, “ unlawfully did sell to one William Tilson, also to one William G. Tufts, also to one Curtis M. Bro.wn, also to one Charles James, also to one Alden Fuller, also to one Willard A. White, also to one Enos L. Williams, also to one Harvey H. Barrows, intoxicating liquor, he the said John Holmes not having then and there any license, authority or appointment…

Relies on State v. Nelson · People v. Wright · Commonwealth v. Symonds

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1875-11-29

How this case has been cited

Cited by 26 later decisions — most recently September 1996 · most notably Commonwealth v. Duquette (1982), Commonwealth v. King (1909)

1 federal appellate · 25 state decisions

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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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Gray, C. J.

¶1When one count in an indictnlent charges two offences, distinct in kind and requiring distinct punishments, the objection of duplicity has been allowed in arrest of judgment. Commonwealth v. Symonds, 2 Mass. 163. State v. Nelson, 8 N. H. 163. People v. Wright, 9 Wend. 193. But when the two offences are precisely alike, the only reason against joining them in one count is that it subjects the accused to confusion and embarrassment in his defence; the objection is not open after a verdict of guilty of one offence only, but must be taken by mo-' tian to quash, or to compel the prosecutor to confine himself ta one of the charges; and the fault is cured by his electing to pro *199ceed upon one charge only, and entering a nolle prosequi as to. the others. Commonwealth v. Tuck, 20 Pick. 356, 361, 362. Commonwealth v. Cain, 102 Mass. 487. State v. Merrill, 44 N. H. 624.

¶2The appeal from the judgment of the District Court vacated that judgment, and rendered immaterial the overruling of the motion to quash in that court and all other errors and irregularities in the proceedings there. Commonwealth v. Harvey, 111 Mass. 420. Commonwealth v. Calhane, 108 Mass. 431. Commonwealth v. Sheehan, 108 Mass. 432 note. In the Superior Court, the district attorney entered a nolle prosequi as to all the offences charged, except the sale to White, and the defendant was tried for that offence only. The presumption, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, is that his conviction in the District Court was for the same offence. Commonwealth v. Fields, ante, 105, and cases cited.

¶3The evidence that the defendant’s son sold intoxicating liquors to White in a public house kept by the defendant, and in which his son was clerk, was sufficient evidence to be submitted to the jury of a sale by the defendant through his son as his agent, and to warrant a conviction. Exceptions overruled.

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