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156 Mass. 229

Commonwealth v. Sullivan

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided May 6, 1892

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1892-05-06

<p>Intoxicating Liquors — Evidence ■— License — Owner of Premises — Matter of Discretion.</p> <p>At the trial of an indictment for keeping and maintaining a tenement used for the illegal sale and keeping of intoxicating liquors,^acts done by another upon the defendant’s premises with the apparent purpose of concealing the liquor from the officers are competent, as furnishing some reason to infer that he was acting in the defendant’s interests, under his employment; especially when taken in connection with the subsequent evidence, that he was with the defendant when the latter applied for a license to keep the premises as a hotel.</p> <p>At the trial of an indictment for keeping and maintaining a tenement used for the illegal sale and keeping of intoxicating liquors, testimony of an officer that he found empty lager beer bottles on the premises which were not there at the time of the former seizure, a little over a month previous, is admissible, as having a tendency to show a replenishing of the stock, and to support the charge of the indictment.</p> <p>At the trial of an indictment for keeping and maintaining a tenement used for the illegal sale and keeping of intoxicating liquors between April 1 and the first Monday of September, 1891, evidence that the defendant applied for and obtained a license some time in April is competent to identify him as keeper of the premises.</p> <p>Whether sufficient notice has been given to warrant the introduction of secondary evidence of an innholder’s license is a preliminary question of fact for the presiding justice to determine, and his finding is not subject to exception.</p>

Cited by 2 later decisions — most recently March 1942

2 state decisions

Relies on Commonwealth v. Robinson · Smith v. Brown · Commonwealth v. Locke

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1892-05-06

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Allen, J.

¶11. O’Brien’s acts upon the defendant’s premises were competent, as furnishing some reason to infer that he was acting in the defendant’s interests, under his employment; especially when taken in connection with the subsequent evidence that he was with the defendant when the latter applied for a license to keep the premises in question as a hotel. Commonwealth v. Locke, 145 Mass. 401.

¶22. Bailey’s testimony that empty lager beer bottles were found on August 19th, which were not there on July 8th, had *231some tendency to show a replenishing of the stock after the former seizure, and to support the charge of the indictment.

¶33. It was competent to show that the defendant applied for and obtained a license, to identify him as keeper of the premises. Commonwealth v. Andrews, 143 Mass. 23. Commonwealth v. Brown, 124 Mass. 318.

¶44. It was for the court to determine whether sufficient notice had been given to warrant the introduction of secondary evidence of the license. This was a preliminary question of fact, and we are unable to say that the determination of the court that sufficient notice had been given was wrong. Smith v. Brown, 151 Mass. 338, 340. Commonwealth v. Robinson, 146 Mass. 571, 580, 581, and cases there cited.

¶5 Exceptions overruled.

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