Commonwealth v. Brown

• Decision Date: 01 January 1890
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. BROWN.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

150 Mass. 334

23 N.E. 98

COMMONWEALTH v. BROWN.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Nantucket.

January 1, 1890

January 1, 1890

HEADNOTES

COUNSEL

H.W Chaplin, for defendant.

A.J Waterman, Atty. Gen., and H.C. Bliss, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the Commonwealth.

OPINION

KNOWLTON J.

This case was before the court, upon a bill of exceptions, at a former sitting, and was reported in 147 Mass. 585, 18 N.E. 587. We have no desire to consider further the questions then raised, nor to modify the conclusion then reached. It comes before us now upon a motion in arrest of judgment, and the effort is, not merely to obtain a revision of the decision upon the questions of law arising on the whole record, but to introduce evidence of extraneous facts alleged to have occurred before the trial, and thereupon to raise new questions of law.

It is an established rule of practice that a motion in arrest of judgment can be sustained only for errors apparent on the record. Prescott v. Tufts, 7 Mass. 209; Brown v. Webber, 6 Cush. 560; Com. v. Edwards, 12 Cush. 187; Belknap v. Gibbens, 13 Metc. 471, 475; Sawyer v. Boston, 144 Mass. 470, 11 N.E. 711; State v. Bangor, 38 Me. 592; State v. Carver, 49 Me. 588; Watts' Case, 4 Leigh, 672; Case v. State, 5 Ind. 1; State v. Douglass, 63 N.C. 500; State v. Heyward, 2 Nott & McC. 312; Heward v. State, 13 Smedes & M. 261; Grubb v. State, 14 Wis. 434. On this motion, therefore, nothing is open to the defendant except matters which appeared upon the record at the time the motion was filed. We find among the papers a statement, signed by the defendant's counsel, setting forth that at the hearing all but one of the allegations of the motion were admitted by the commonwealth to be true; but of this we can take no notice. It would have been irregular for the court to consider the allegations of facts, not of record, contained in the motion, and there is nothing properly verified, to show that any admission was before the court at the hearing. Moreover, it is provided by Pub.St. c. 214, § 27, that "no motion in arrest of judgment shall be allowed for a cause existing before verdict, unless the same affects the jurisdiction of the court." It can hardly be contended that the superior court sitting for Nantucket county had no jurisdiction to try the defendant, when he was before it, for committing the crimes named in the indictment. Some of the allegations of fact contained in the motion, if seasonably brought to the attention of the court, would have had an important bearing upon the course of the proceedings. But they did not affect the jurisdiction of the court to try and punish the defendant for the offenses with which he was charged.

The defendant also sought to raise in another form the questions presented by his motion in arrest, and filed what he called an "exception to the jurisdiction." This is nothing but a motion in arrest of judgment under another name. The allegations contained in it, and the action sought to be obtained from the court, are precisely the same as in the motion. At the hearing upon it the commonwealth admitted the truth of all but one of the facts alleged, and the judge denied the motion, and allowed the defendant a bill of exceptions to his ruling. The ruling was correct. All that we have said in regard to the motion in arrest of judgment is applicable to this plea or motion. By giving a motion in arrest of judgment a different name, a defendant cannot prevent the application to it of pertinent principles of law.

All the matters of which the defendant complains were of a kind which should have been brought to the attention of the court at or before the trial. It seems probable that they were known to him before the trial. If not, they were of a kind about which, if he deemed them important, it was...