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145 Mass. 250

Commonwealth v. Murphy

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided November 22, 1887

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1887-11-22

Complaint to the Police Court of Gloucester, against Michael J. Murphy and David C. Godfrey, for keeping and maintaining a common nuisance, to wit, a certain tenement in Gloucester, used for the illegal sale and illegal keeping of intoxicating liquors, on October 1, 1885, and on divers other days and times between that day and March 26, 1886.

Relies on Commonwealth v. Churchill · Commonwealth v. Galligan

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1887-11-22

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently November 1914

8 state decisions

401887189019001910decided

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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Holmes, J.

¶1The jury may fairly have understood that they were instructed to convict the defendant Godfrey, although they *251should find that Murphy was the sole proprietor, and that Godfrey’s assistance was only that of a servant, rendered in Murphy’s presence, and without exercising any kind of control over the premises. The case therefore falls within Commonwealth v. Galligan, 144 Mass. 171, which was decided after the ruling excepted to. See also Commonwealth v. Churchill, 136 Mass. 148, 151. This is the only exception argued, and is admitted not to affect the defendant Murphy.

¶2Exceptions of Q-odfrey sustained.

¶3Exceptions of Murphy overruled.

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