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133 Mass. 393

Commonwealth v. Soper

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided September 2, 1882

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1882-09-02

Indictment for perjury. At the trial in the Superior Court, before Knowlton, J., the jury returned a verdict of guilty; and the defendant alleged exceptions, which appear in the opinion.

Relies on Commonwealth v. Hall · Commonwealth v. Hatfield · Commonwealth v. McKean

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1882-09-02

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently June 1944

4 state decisions

101882189019001910192019301940decided

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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Morton, C. J.

¶1The indictment alleges that, on the third day of January, 1882, a complaint was made before W: liam S. Dana, a trial justice, against one Thompson, charg lg said Thompson with larceny; that Thompson was arrest -id and brought before the justice, and an examination had uj on the complaint on the said third day of January ;• and that,; t such examination, the defendant committed the perjury for which he is indicted. Upon the production of the record of the trial justice, in support of the indictment, it appeared that the complaint against Thompson was dated on the thirty-first day of December, 1881, but that the arrest and examination were on the said third day of January.

¶2The defendant asked the judge to rule that there was a fatal variance between the allegations and the proofs. We are of opinion that the judge rightly refused so to rule.

¶3Without discussing the question as to what might be the rule at common law, it is clear that, under our statutes, there is no material variance of which the defendant can avail himself. Pub. Sts. g. 214, § 26. There is no room to doubt that the *394complaint offered in evidence is the same as the one described in the indictment. In the words of the statute, “ the identity of the instrument is evident, and the purport thereof is sufficiently described to prevent all prejudice to the defendant.”

¶4The variance therefore cannot be deemed material. Commonwealth v. Hall, 97 Mass. 570. Commonwealth v. McKean, 98 Mass. 9. Commonwealth v. Hatfield, 107 Mass. 227.

¶5Exceptions overruled.

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