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123 Mass. 414

Commonwealth v. Trainor

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided November 28, 1877

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1877-11-28

<p>On a complaint for selling intoxicating liquor, it is a sufficient statement of the name of the person, to whom the liquor is alleged to be sold, if the name, by which he was generally known at the time of .the sale, is given, although he was baptized by a different name.</p> <p>If, on a complaint for selling intoxicating liquor, the person to whom the liquor ia alleged to have been sold, and who testifies to the sale, admits that he went to the defendant’s place of business for the purpose of procuring evidence against him, and was paid for it, the defendant has no ground of exception to the refusal of the judge to give an instruction that the evidence of such person should be considered with great care, or to the giving of an instruction that in considering his testimony the jury should have regard to what appeared in the evidence, as to the part he had taken, that when a witness has by words or acts manifested a feeling adverse to the defendant, or, for any cause, might be affected by prejudice, the jury should consider and weigh these facts, and make reasonable allowance therefor, in considering his testimony.</p>

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1877-11-28

How this case has been cited

Cited by 15 later decisions — most recently January 1941

1 federal appellate · 14 state decisions — followed in 10 states

4018771880189019001910192019301940decided

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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¶1Norfolk.

¶2Complaint under the St. of 1875, e. 99, charging the defendant with a single sale of intoxicating liquor to “ Andrew D Rooney.”

¶3The defendant requested the judge to rule as follows: “ 1. A mistake in the name of the person to whom the alleged sale was made is a fatal variance. 2. Rooney should be described in the *415complaint by his true Christian name, which is Andrew, and not Andrew D. A fictitious Christian name is not sufficient. 3. The Christian name is that part of one’s name which precedes the surname, and it is the name given at the time of baptism. 4. Rooney inserted the letter D. between his surname and his Christian name without any legal right or authority whatever, and consequently is not described in the complaint by his true Christian name, as the law requires. 5. After a person is christened and baptized by a name, and he adopts and becomes known by that name, and none other, the name by which he was so christened and baptized and known is his true Christian name. 6. A person can change no part of his true name only by due process of law. 7. There is a fatal variance between the allegations in the complaint and the evidence as to the true name of the person to whom the alleged sale was made. 8. The testimony of Rooney should be considered with great care by the jury.”

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