Com. v. Billings

• Citation: 167 Mass. 283,45 N.E. 910
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. BILLINGS.
• Decision Date: 08 January 1897
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

167 Mass. 283

45 N.E. 910

COMMONWEALTH v. BILLINGS.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Suffolk.

January 8, 1897

COUNSEL

M.J. Sughrue, First Asst. Dist. Atty., for the Commonwealth.

Melvin O. Adams, for defendant.

OPINION

KNOWLTON J.

The defendant was convicted only on the eighth, sixteenth, and twenty-fourth counts of the indictment; and, if there were any errors in the admission of evidence affecting only counts upon which he was acquitted, they did him no harm, and cannot now be availed of as grounds for a new trial. Com. v Meserve, 154 Mass. 64, 27 N.E. 997.

The first exception relates to the admission of evidence. The search of Learned's house, and the discovery of a large amount of property there such as is not ordinarily found in dwelling houses, and the comparison of articles there found with other articles found in the defendant's house, are facts competent to be put in evidence against the defendant in connection with other evidence in the case. There was testimony that the defendant said of goods found in his possession, "that he obtained them from Learned, and helped him take care of them in the storehouse of his employers, on Fulton Place; that Learned would never tell him where he got them, except that he stood in with clerks, and that Learned would never tell him what clerks he stood in with; that he said the goods found at his house were goods given him by Learned for carrying goods to Learned's house from time to time in packages, the size of which was perhaps a foot and a half long." It also appeared that Learned was a police officer attached to a police station in that part of Boston where they were; that the defendant was frequently in his company on the street, evenings, and on one occasion, at a little after midnight, was found on the street, pushing a hand cart on which was a part of the property described in the indictment; that, when the defendant was discovered on this occasion by a police officer, Learned quickly appeared, coming from behind the defendant, and, while Learned and the other officer were examining the property on the hand cart, Learned said to the other officer, "Your man is gone"; and that the defendant then ran away, and Learned pursued him in one direction, and the other officer in another. These circumstances, all occurring at about the same time, were evidence that there was a guilty arrangement between the defendant and Learned to steal property from shops in that vicinity, or to receive property known by them to have been stolen by others. At least, it was evidence that the defendant was receiving from Learned stolen property believing it to have been stolen, which is all that the law requires to constitute the crime of which he was convicted. ...