Commonwealth v. Alba
| Decision Date | 02 June 1930 |
| Citation | 271 Mass. 333,171 N.E. 458 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. ALBA (two cases). |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Exceptions from Superior Court Suffolk County; Gray, Judge.
James Alba and Alphonse Alba were convicted of being accessories before the fact to the burning of a building and chattels therein with intent to defraud the insurer, and they bring exceptions.
Exceptions overruled.
F. M. J. Sheenan, Asst. Dist. Atty., of Boston, for the commonwealth.
J. P. Walsh, of Boston, for defendants.
Each defendant was convicted of being an accessory before the fact to the burning of a building and chattels therein with intent to defraud the insurer. In each indictment the principal was alleged to be ‘John Doe, whose true name and a more particular description of whom is to the said jurors unknown.’ The defendants and their mother, who owned the building, had previously been acquitted on indictments charging them as principals with burning the building.
The building, located in Revere, was three stories in height, with two apartments on each floor. The three rear apartments had been unoccupied for a substantial period of time. The lower apartment on the front side was occupied by James Alba and his family, the apartment over this by his mother, and the corresponding apartment on the third floor by Alphonse Alba and his family. The insurance on the building was in the name of its owner. The furniture in the apartment of James Alba was insured by him for the first time on July 30, 1928, and the defendant Alphonse Alba, on August 8, 1928, placed insurance on the furniture in his apartment which had been uninsured for about one year.
Both defendants testified, in substance, that the property insured under their respective policies was worth more than the amount of the insurance, and no evidence was introduced to contradict this testimony. The fire was discovered at about 2 a. m. on December 24, 1928, and when the firemen arrived no one was in the building and they could go into any of the apartments without difficulty, the outside front and back doors being either open or unlocked, and the doors of each tenement inside the building were open. There was evidence that no door had been broken in. The fire was of undoubted, incendiary origin. The evidence tended to prove that it started in the kitchen on the first floor, and that a separate fire was started in the hallway leading to the second floor; that a box in one room contained alcohol with a cotton batting trailer leading from it into the corridor, and that in another room a box contained turpentine. A trailer of the same material was also on the stairway leading from the first to the second floor, and a rug in one of the rooms was saturated with turpentine. The preparations for a fire were confined to the apartments on the first and second floors, and to the stairway leading from one to the other, and the fire was confined to those two floors.
The testimony of the defendants and their witnesses tended to prove that James Alba, having left his three children with a relative in Boston, went on December 23 with his wife and mother to the house of a relative in Medford to spend Christmas in accordance with an invitation previously given, and that on the same day Alphonse Alba went with his family to visit the same relative on a similar invitation. Their testimony tended to prove that each locked the door when he left. The wife of James testified that Alphonse was in the house when she and her husband left, but Alphonse testified that they left about the same time, and as he understood it James left a few minutes later.
There was testimony that the defendant James Alba said to an officer that he did not know how much insurance he had on the furniture nor who the agent was; that he had no money and his mother, who owns the house, ‘carried him along.’
The defendant Alphonse Alba testified that he was worth in cash $30,000; that when the police officer asked him how much money he had he said three or four thousand dollars as he did not know who the police officer was, although he was told that he was being investigated; that when he made the statement as to the amount to the police officer he had $33,000 on deposit; that he solicited no one to set the fire and knew nothing about the alcohol, turpentine or cotton batting found in the house; and that he left the house Sunday, December 23, at about 11:30.
James Alba testified that he was worth $50,000, but that he told the officer he had no money...
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