Commonwealth v. Boyle

Decided October 15, 1859

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1859-10-15

Indictment on St. 1855, c. 215, § 17, found at December term 1858 of the court of common pleas in Hampshire, and alleging that the defendant, on the 1st of January 1858, and on divers other days from that day to the day of the finding of this indictment, at Hatfield in said county, “ he not being then and there duly appointed and authorized therefor, was a common seller of intoxicating liquors.” The defendant pleaded in bar, that a complaint against him for being a common…

Cited by 1 later decisions — most recently February 1936

1 state decisions

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Decided 1859-10-15

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Metcalf, J.

¶11. The first plea, which the defendant filed in this case, was rightly adjudged bad on demurrer. Though a justice of the peace has original jurisdiction of the offence of being a common seller of intoxicating liquors, yet that jurisdiction is not exclusive, but is concurrent with the jurisdiction of the court of common pleas — now the superior court. He may therefore either try a defendant who is brought before him on a charge of being a common seller, or may bind him over to take his trial, on that charge, in that court. Commonwealth v. Harris, 8 Gray, 470.

¶22. The time and place of the commission of the offence being alleged with legal certainty, and the authority to sell at that time and place being sufficiently negatived, the motion in arrest of judgment was rightly overruled. Exceptions overruled.