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143 Mass. 180

Commonwealth v. Trider

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided January 4, 1887

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1887-01-04

Indictment, against Charles A. Trider and Mary Smith, for adultery. Trial in the Superior Court, before Eammond, J., who allowed a bill of exceptions, in substance as follows: The government called as a witness Asahel A. Smith, who testified, in chief, that he was the husband of the female defend- . ant, and this was admitted by the defendants.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1887-01-04

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently March 1949

2 federal appellate · 4 state decisions

401887189019001910192019301940decided

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 →

W. Állen, J.

¶1The 'question put to the witness Colgan, which she declined to answer, was one the answer to which might tend to criminate her; and she had not, by answering the question whether she had lived in the house, waived her right to decline to answer questions as to. the character of the house. She was excused from answering solely for the reason that she objected to answer a question the answer to which might tend to criminate her. It sufficiently appeared that she declined to answer for that reason.

¶2The evidence of the witness Williams had no tendency to contradict the witness Smith, who testified that he had employed persons to watch his wife; and evidence that, on other occasions than that of the alleged offence, he had accused his wife of similar acts of which she was not guilty, was clearly irrelevant, and involved immaterial issues.

¶3Exceptions overruled.

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