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138 Mass. 186

Commonwealth v. Day

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided November 26, 1884

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1884-11-26

Indictment on the Pub. Sts. c. 208, § 36, alleging that the defendants, on March 3, 1884, at Lawrence, “did feloniously and knowingly have in their possession certain tools and implements, that is to say, one sectional jimmy, one small jimmy, two pairs of handcuffs, twenty steel twist drills, one spatula, one push screw, twenty-five drills, divers and sundry steel wedges, one extension bit, one bit-stock, one bellows, seven tin spouts, one piece of rubber hose, sundry pieces…

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1884-11-26

How this case has been cited

Cited by 11 later decisions — most recently June 2007

11 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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W. Allen, J.

¶1Section 36 of the Pub. Sts. c. 203, upon which the indictment is framed, prohibits the possession by any person of any tool or implement adapted and designed for certain purposes named, knowing the same to be adapted and designed for the purposes aforesaid, with intent to use or employ or allow the same to be used or employed for such purposes. Evidence that other tools and implements than those named in the indictment, adapted and designed for the purpose alleged, were found, with those named, in the possession of the defendants, was not objected to otherwise than as included in the obviously untenable objection to the admission of evidence of the possession of any tools or implements except the two dark lanterns. The evidence was, however, competent to show the character of the possession of tools and implements mentioned in the indictment.

¶2So evidence that the defendants had twice used the same or similar tools and implements in the commission of burglaries, once ten days and once about five months before the time of the offence for which they were on trial, was competent to show the knowledge and purpose alleged in the indictment and necessary to be proved. No objection was made that proper instructions were not given to the jury. Exceptions overruled.

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