Commonwealth v. Donovan

Decided September 15, 1860

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1860-09-15

<p>An indictment on St. 1855, c. 405, which alleges that the defendant at a certain time and place kept and maintained “ a certain building, place and tenement, to wit, a room in a dwelling-house,” used for the purposes prohibited by that statute, “ whereby, and by force of the statute in such case made and provided, the said building, place and tenement, then and there kept and maintained by the defendant and then and there used as aforesaid was then and there a common nuisance,” sufficiently alleges the place where the building was situated, and that the room was a common nuisance.</p>

Decided 1860-09-15

Merrick, J.

¶1The indictment does not vary from the forms which have been approved and often adopted in setting forth offences of a similar character, and contains a statement of all the facts which are necessary to show that the particular offence charged against the defendant has been committed in the place where he kept the tenement. Archb. Crim. Pl. (10th ed.) 636, *19637. Commonwealth v. Hill, 14 Gray, 24. A part of the building may be used in such manner as to make it a nuisance, without affecting the legal character of the other part. It is therefore sufficient to allege and prove that that part has been kept for such purposes as the statute has prohibited and made illegal. Commonwealth v. Shattuck, 14 Gray, 23.

¶2 Exceptions overruled.