59 Mass. 288 - Commonwealth v. Nolan — 59 Mass. 288

Commonwealth vs. Greely Nolan. The offence of stealing from the person, upon an indictment and conviction thereof in the court of common pleas or municipal court, is punishable by imprisonment in the state prison, as provided in the Rev. Sts. c. 120, § 16, although the property alleged to be stolen does not exceed five dollars in value. The defendant was indicted tinder an assumed name, and tried in the municipal court, before Mellen, J., for stealing from the person of one Sanborn, property of the value of $1.35. Being convicted, he moved in arrest of judgment, that he had been previously tried and convicted of the same offence by a court of competent jurisdiction, namely, the police court of the city of Boston, and he offered the record of that court in evidence to sustain his motion. The presiding judge overruled the motion, and the defendant excepted. In this court, the defendant waived his exception, and the only question was as to the sentence. Clifford, attorney-general, and S. D. Parker, county attorney, for the commonwealth. R. Rantoul, Jr., for the defendant. — Dewey, J. (majority) Dewey, J. The offence, made punishable by the Rev. Sts. c. 126, § 16, is that of stealing from the person of another; and the degree of punishment is not by the statute made to depend upon the value of the property stolen. Under this section, the taking of any amount of property, by stealing the same from the person of another, is punishable in the state prison, as well as in the county jail, or house of correction. The provisions of the eighteenth section of this chapter, enlarging somewhat the extent of the jurisdiction of justices of the peace, in cases of larceny, have not taken from the court of common pleas the jurisdiction of the offence punishable under the sixteenth section. Whether justices of the peace have, by the eighteenth section, concurrent jurisdiction of a case of larceny from the person, where the property stolen is not over five dollars, in value, is a point upon which we have no occasion to express an opinion, being all satisfied, that the jurisdiction of the court of common pleas is fully given by the sixteenth section, and that the punishment provided in that section may in all cases properly be inflicted, where the proceeding is by indictment in the court of common pleas.