Public-domain · open source
OpenJurist

160 Mass. 354

Commonwealth v. Swain

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided January 4, 1894

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1894-01-04

Complaint, to the Municipal Court of Boston, under St. 1885, c. 342, alleging that certain rooms in Boston were occupied by some person to the complainant unknown, with apparatus, books, and other devices, “for the purpose of registering bets and of buying and selling pools upon the result of trials and contests of skill, speed, and endurance of men, birds, beasts, and machines,” and that the defendant, on June 30, 1893, was “ present in said rooms, and then and there…

Relies on Commonwealth v. Whitney · Commonwealth v. Ferry · Commonwealth v. Clancy

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1894-01-04

How this case has been cited

Cited by 10 later decisions — most recently April 1978

9 state decisions

40189419001910192019301940195019601970decided

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 complaint follows the language of the statute, and sets forth an offence against the law. St. 1885, c. 342. Commonwealth v. Ferry, 146 Mass. 203. Commonwealth v. Clancy, 154 Mass. 128. In Commonwealth v. Sheedy, 159 Mass. 55, the offence alleged consisted of disposing of a single suit of clothes, and it was held necessary to identify the transaction by stating the name of the person to whom the suit was disposed of, if known. But when, as here, the offence consists in being present in a room and engaged in a certain business, it is not necessary to mention names. See further Commonwealth v. Horton, 2 Gray, 69, 70.

¶2We have expressed our opinion upon the merits, but this motion in arrest of judgment appears by the record to have been made after default. The case being in the Superior Court by appeal from the Municipal Court, nothing remained to be done but to enter judgment and therefore the motion was not premature. Pub. Sts. c. 155, § 62. Commonwealth v. Whitney, 108 Mass. 5. But by Pub. Sts. c. 214, § 27, “ no motion in arrest of judgment shall be allowed for a cause existing before verdict, unless the same affects the jurisdiction of the court.” It is settled that the words “ before verdict ” only mark a stage of the case in a convenient and general way. They signify that *356the cause relied on must have arisen after the facts are settled by some of the means known to the law, but they are not to be taken literally as requiring a verdict to have been rendered in order to make the section applicable. Commonwealth v. Chiovaro, 129 Mass. 489. The present motion falls within the statute.

¶3Judgment affirmed.

/160/mass/354 · .json · Public domain