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77 Me. 380

State v. Rollins

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine

Decided June 4, 1885

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine · decided 1885-06-04

On exceptions from superior court. Indictment for keeping a drinking house and tippling shop. The respondent seasonably before trial, moved for a bill of particulars. The motion was overruled.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1885-06-04

How this case has been cited

Cited by 5 later decisions — most recently July 1968

5 state decisions

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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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Walton, J.

¶1We think the exceptions in this case must be overruled.

¶2The indictment is sufficient. State v. Collins, 48 Maine, 217 ; State v. Casey, 45 Maine, 435.

¶3The exclusion of the question put to the government witness (Harring'ton) on cross-examination was not erroneous. The extent to which a cross-examination relating to collateral matters may be carried is within the discretion of the presiding judge. By whom the witness was employed to act as a detective was entirely irrelevant to the issue being tried; and upon principles of public policy as well as in the exercise of the discretionary powers of a presiding judge, such a question may properly be excluded. The employment of detectives is not in all cases discreditable. In many cases it is the only way of bringing the offenders to justice. It is as important that laws should be enforced as it is that they should be enacted. If it is commendable in the legislature to enact laws prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors, or of diseased meat, or other uirwholsome food, it is equally commendable on the part of the community to endeavor to enforce them; and persons who are willing to spend their time or money in efforts to enforce such laws, should not be unnecessarily exposed to the ill-will of the persons whose crimes are thereby detected. We think the presiding judge committed no error in excluding the proposed question.

¶4Nor was there any error on the part of the judge in calling the jury into court and endeavoring to impress upon them the importance of an agreement. Nor do we discover anything in *384the remarks made by the judge t.o the jury which we can say as matter of law it was illegal for him to say. A judge’s style and manner are his own. We have no more right to dictate to the judge of the superior court what the style or manner- of his address to a jury shall be than he has to dictate to us what ours shall be. It is enough for us to say that we find nothing illegal in the course pursued by the presiding judge in this case.

¶5Exceptions overruled.

Peters, C. J., Walton, Danforth, Emery and Poster, JJ., concurred.
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