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138 Mass. 508

Commonwealth v. Murray

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided February 27, 1885

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1885-02-27

Complaint to the Second District Court of Eastern Middle-sex, for keeping and maintaining a common nuisance, to wit, a tenement in Watertown, used for the illegal sale and illegal keeping of intoxicating liquors, on June 20, 1884, and on divers other days and times between that day and July 19, 1884.

Relies on Commonwealth v. Rafferty · Commonwealth v. Rogers

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1885-02-27

How this case has been cited

Cited by 3 later decisions — most recently December 2008

3 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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Holmes, J.

¶1The fact that the defendant had a license did not make it impossible for him to use his tenement for the illegal keeping or sale of intoxicating liquors, and thus to keep or maintain a common nuisance. While it is true that a single sale which is illegal, because not within the license, does not constitute or necessarily prove the offence, Commonwealth v. Patterson, ante, 498, it is settled that a person may be convicted of keeping and maintaining a common nuisance under the Pub. Sts. c. 101, §§ 6, 7, on evidence of such illegal sales, although he has a license. Commonwealth v. Tabor, ante, 496. Commonwealth v. Rogers, 135 Mass. 536. Commonwealth v. Rafferty, 133 Mass. 574. This is the only question argued. The instructions requested, so far as correct or pertinent, were covered by those given by the court.

¶2Exceptions overruled.

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