Com. v. Welch
| Decision Date | 01 February 1963 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. Michael J. WELCH. * |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Michael J. Monahan, Chelsea, for defendant.
Joseph C. Duggan, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., for the Commonwealth.
Before WILKINS, C. J., and SPALDING, WHITTEMORE, SPIEGEL and REARDON, JJ.
An indictment, alleging a violation of G.L. c. 268, § 9, 1 charged that on or about April 21, 1958, the defendant, 'being a commissioner and member of the Taunton Municipal Light Commission of said City of Taunton, which owns a municipally operated public utility known as the Taunton Municipal Lighting Plant, and being duly and legally appointed and qualified to perform the duties of such officer and being authorized to procure materials, supplies and other articles by purchase and contract, and to employ services and labor, did receive for himself a present, to wit: Money of the amount and of the value, in all of $150.00 from Arthur J. Sullivan, owner of the A. J. S. Piping Company of Braintree, who furnished such materials and supplies to said Taunton Municipal Lighting Plant, being a portion of the $1,000.00 check received by Carroll A. Oliver on or about April 21, 1958.' The defendant, having waived his right to a trial by jury, was found guilty by a judge of the Superior Court. The case is here on appeal under G.L. c. 278, §§ 33A-33G, as amended through St.1955, c. 352, § 1.
The transcript of evidence reveals the following. Arthur J. Sullivan, owner of the A. J. S. Piping Company, Inc., testified that in 1958 his firm was performing a contract for the installation of piping for the Taunton Municipal Lighting Plant and that during this period he performed other contracts for the plant. He further testified that on or about April 21, 1958, he gave a $1,000 check to Carroll A. Oliver, the manager of the lighting plant because he 'wanted the boys to have a good time, meaning the commissioners' and Oliver, at a 'power' convention to be held in New Orleans. Oliver admitted to a State police lieutenant investigating the case that he had received and indorsed the check from Sullivan. Oliver used the check to purchase two 'batches' of travelers' check of $500 each, one in his name and the other in the name of John J. O'Donnell, one of the commissioners. Two purchasers' applications for travelers' checks and the $1,000 cancelled check were admitted in evidence. During the investigation of the case O'Donnell admitted that he received $500 of the $1,000 from Oliver in the form of travelers' checks and that, when he received the check, he was aware the money came from Sullivan so that the commissioners could have 'a good time.' O'Donnell also told the investigating police officer that of the $500 proceeds he received from Oliver, he gave $200 to the defendant at a Providence, Rhode Island, railroad station. The defendant stated to the police lieutenant that O'Donnell gave him $150 in the railroad station at Providence but that he 'did not know until sometime around January 10, 1959, from where the money had come.'
The defendant's first assignment of error asserts that the trial judge did not restrict the testimony of a police officer regarding a conversation held between that officer and a codefendant, John J. O'Donnell, in so far as the conversation concerned the defendant, who was not present at the time. The transcript shows that the judge did restrict this testimony with the remark: 'I am going to permit it [the conversation] insofar as it relates to Mr. O' Donnell's case.'
Assignments of error two and three relate to the admission in evidence against the defendant of the purchaser's application for travelers' checks and the $1,000 check from Sullivan to Oliver. As the defendant was charged in the indictment with receiving as a present $150 of the original $1,000 given to Oliver, it was clearly relevant to trace the source of the money to Sullivan's check. Payment of the money was criminal only if it was received 'directly or indirectly * * * from the person who makes such contract' within the meaning of G.L. c. 268, § 9. Evidence as to how the money was paid, and by whom it was paid, was properly admitted. The commission of a crime cannot always be proved by relating one incident. The receipt of the check for $1,000 by Oliver, for example, was but one link in a chain of necessarily related events. Commonwealth v. McCarthy, 281 Mass. 253, 257-258, 183 N.E. 495, 497, 85 A.L.R. 1141.
The fourth assignment of error is on the grounds that the 'indictment was vague, uncertain and indefinite as to time and place and did not...
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