Com. v. Chase
| Decision Date | 26 November 1888 |
| Citation | 147 Mass. 597,18 N.E. 565 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. CHASE et al. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
J. Brown and A.H. Hood, for defendants.
A.J Waterman, Atty. Gen., and H.C. Bliss, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the Commonwealth.
The defendants were indicted for burning a barn of one Gideon Horton; the first-named, Elias B. Chase, as principal, and the second as accessory. At the trial, the prosecution relied mainly upon the testimony of a boy named Coates, who appeared by his own testimony and was conceded to have been an accomplice. The defendants requested the court to advise the jury that it was not safe to convict the defendants on the uncorroborated testimony of an accomplice, and that, unless he was corroborated in some material fact, the court should advise the jury to acquit. This request was complied with but the court declined to rule in answer to the defendants' further request that there was no evidence in the case that tended to corroborate the accomplice as to any such fact, and instructed the jury that, if they found that the defendants had made certain threats testified to, the making of such threats tended to corroborate the testimony of Coates. While these threats to injure Horton, and to revenge themselves for an injury, real or fancied, which he had done them, connected with evidence of taunts showing malice and ill will, are quite numerous, and are in various forms of expression, they are not the same as those testified to by the accomplice. The defendants, therefore, urge that they can have no legitimate tendency to corroborate his story. But evidence which tends to prove the guilt of a defendant is sufficient, by way of corroboration, although it does not directly confirm any particular fact stated by the accomplice. "We think the rule is," says Mr. Justice MORTON in Com. v. Bosworth, 22 Pick. 397, "that the corroborative evidence must relate to some portion of the testimony which is material to the issue." The accuracy of this statement has never been questioned; and, "taking the whole paragraph together," says Chief Justice GRAY, in Com. v. Holmes, 127 Mass. 424, "it is manifest that the phrase 'material to the issue' is equivalent to 'involving the guilt of the party on trial,' or 'having necessary connection with the guilt of the defendant.' " That threats made by the defendants to inflict serious injury on the party whose barn was...
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