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123 Mass. 253

Commonwealth v. Taber

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided October 23, 1877

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1877-10-23

<p>If a judge of a district court holds, at the same time, the office of mayor of a city within the district, the question whether he is disqualified to act as judge, by reason of incompatibility in the two offices cannot be determined upon an appeal taken by a person whom he has tried and found guilty upon a complaint originally made returnable before him.</p>

Relies on Sheehan's Case · McGregor v. Balch

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1877-10-23

How this case has been cited

Cited by 11 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently November 1937

10 state decisions

301877188018901900191019201930decided

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.

¶1The competency of the magistrate, before whom this prosecution was commenced, is not objected to on account of any disqualification by reason of personal interest in the pause, as in Richardson v. Welcome, 6 Cush. 331, but upon the ground that, holding the executive office of mayor of the city of New Bedford, he could not at the same time exercise judicial power as a judge within the same territory. As, upon the allegations of the plea, he was at least a judge defacto, his jurisdiction could not be controverted upon this ground, nor the question whether the two offices were incompatible be tried, in a proceeding to which he was not a party. Milward v. Thatcher, 2 T. R. 81, 87. McGregor v. Balch, 14 Vt. 428. Coolidge v. Brigham, 1 Allen, 333. Sheehan's case, 122 Mass. 445.

¶2 Judgment affirmed.

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