Com. v. Dickinson
Decision Date | 28 October 1964 |
Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. Ferdinand DICKINSON. |
Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Phillip S. Cronin, Asst. Dist. Atty., for Commonwealth.
Before WILKINS, C. J., and SPALDING, WHITTEMORE, CUTTER, KIRK, SPIEGEL and REARDON, JJ.
RESCRIPT.
The defendant was found guilty by a judge of the Superior Court sitting without jury of open and gross lewdness and lascivious behavior. The defendant, who came from Taunton on a chilly March night, sought directions to Brockton from the female complainant on the Bridgewater State Teachers College campus. She was unable to hear him and approached his car to discover him naked from the waist down with his left hand 'between his legs on his private.' 'The complainant observed his private organ.' The contention of the defendant that it was not sufficiently shown that he intended his act to be 'open,' G.L. c. 272, § 16, is without merit. The circumstances of his act are indicative of an intention which made it 'open' as defined in Commonwealth v. Wardell, 128 Mass. 52, 54, and Commonwealth v. Cummings, 273 Mass. 229, 231, 173 N.E. 506.
Exceptions overruled.
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...the purview of section 16 is the imposition of lewdness or nudity on an unsuspecting or unwilling person, e. g., Commonwealth v. Dickinson, 348 Mass. 767, 202 N.E.2d 240 (1964), and Commonwealth v. Cummings, 273 Mass. 229, 231, 173 N.E. 506 (1930). The crime of indecent exposure is "offensi......
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