Commonwealth v. Beck
| Decision Date | 22 November 1904 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH SAME v. BECK. SAME v. MURPHY. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Rockwood
Hoar, Dist. Atty. and Geo. S. Taft, Asst. Dist. Atty., for the Commonwealth.
David I. Walsh, Thos. L. Walsh, John E. Sullivan, and David F O'Connell, for defendants.
No offense known to the common law is described in these complaints, and, if they can be sustained, it must be on the ground that they charge a misdemeanor under Rev. Laws, c 100, § 49. This section, in substance, was originally St 1897, p. 249, c. 271, § 1, which was before this court for construction in Com. v. Intoxicating Liquors, 172 Mass. 311, 52 N.E. 389, when it was said: 'The act was manifestly intended to meet some difficulties which had been encountered by the government in the prosecution of common carriers for illegally keeping of intoxicating liquors, and to make it more difficult for the guilty to escape detection, when setting up the fraudulent defense that the liquors found in the possession of the carrier were for delivery by him as such to some person.' The general rule of criminal pleading that it is sufficient to charge a statutory offense in the language of the statute cannot be applied, for there is no allegation that each defendant as a common carrier, or as a person lawfully conducting a general express business, had violated the provisions of this section. Com. v Ashton, 125 Mass. 384, 385. The offense described is that each defendant 'not then and there regularly and lawfully conducting a general express business' brought and delivered intoxicating liquor for hire or reward in a city where licenses of the first five classes to sell such liquors had not been granted, and by its very terms excludes therefrom those whom the statute was designed to reach and punish. Nor are the cases covered by the exception to the rule that, where the language of the statute is so general as to include cases which come within its terms, though not within its spirit, the offense is to be gathered from the whole act, according to the intention of the Legislature, for the attempt is made in these complaints to enlarge, not to restrict, the use of language, and to make the alleged offense penal by implication. Com. v. Barrett, 108 Mass. 302, 303. When the duly licensed seller delivers to the railroad corporation, or to others regularly and lawfuly conducting a general express business, intoxicating liquor for transportation into a city or...
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