Commonwealth v. Clancy
| Decision Date | 23 November 1927 |
| Citation | 261 Mass. 345,158 N.E. 758 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH v. CLANCY. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Exceptions from Superior Court, Middlesex County; H. P. Williams, Judge.
Francis P. Clancy was convicted of using an automobile without authority on a public highway, and he excepts. Exceptions sustained.
Jurisdiction of superior court in criminal case coming before it on appeal is measured by jurisdiction of district court from whence complaint came.
G. L. c. 90, s 24, as amended by St. 1926, c. 253, was intended to regulate use of motor vehicles on ways as defined by chapter 90, s 1, and did not make criminal use of motor vehicle in all places within commonwealth even though use was without authority and known to be unauthorized by user, and hence defendant could not be prosecuted thereunder for using motor vehicle on property formerly public way.
R. T. Bushnell, Dist. Atty., and F. A. Crafts, Asst. Dist. Atty., both of Boston, for the Commonwealth.
F. J. Lehan, of Cambridge, for defendant.
In the Third district court of Eastern Middlesex the defendant was found guilty, and appealed to the superior court, on a complaint ‘that Francis P. Clancy did use a motor vehicle, to wit, an automobile the property of Guy C. Clinch without authority, on a public way in said Cambridge, knowing that such use was unauthorized.’ After the case was called for trial in the superior court, a jury trial being waived, the commonwealth moved to amend the complaint as follows:
‘Now comes the commonwealth in the above-entitled cause and moves to amend the complaint therein by striking out as surplusage the words ‘on a public way in said Cambridge.’'
This motion was granted over the defendant's objection and the defendant's exceptions saved. Thereupon a ‘Statement of Agreed Facts' was read to the trial judge by the district attorney, who then rested. The defendant filed a written motion for a finding of ‘Not Guilty’ and for the acquittal and discharge of the defendant. The motion was denied subject to the defendant's exceptions. On the agreed statement of facts the judge found the defendant guilty and imposed a sentence to the house of correction.
The agreed facts are as follows:
The ‘defendant, Francis P. Clancy, on the 27th day of June, 1927, took a motor vehicle, the property of another, from property of the Boston & Maine Railroad in Cambridge, and used the said motor vehicle without authority, knowing that such use was unauthorized, and such use by the defendant of the said motor vehicle consisted in driving the said automobile from behind a roundhouse on the property of the said Boston & Maine Railroad on to another section of the property of the Boston & Maine Railroad which was formerly a public way of the city of Cambridge, and operated the said automobile a distance of some 50 to 100 feet along said strip of land belonging to the...
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Com. v. Geisler
...at 411 (12th ed. 1975). Contrast Commonwealth v. Heffron, supra at 150-151 (maintaining tenement as nuisance); Commonwealth v. Clancy, 261 Mass. 345, 347-348, 158 N.E. 758 (1927) (using motor vehicle without authority, where complaint lacked not only allegation of place but also of use on p......
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Commonwealth v. Virgilio
...the Commonwealth.’ ” Ibid., quoting from Commonwealth v. Clarke, 254 Mass. 566, 568, 150 N.E. 829 (1926), and Commonwealth v. Clancy, 261 Mass. 345, 348, 158 N.E. 758 (1927). In Commonwealth v. Paccia, 338 Mass. 4, 6, 153 N.E.2d 664 (1958), the Supreme Judicial Court construed that language......
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Commonwealth v. Belliveau, 09-P-467.
...by the driver amounted to operation; the statute “was passed for the protection of travellers upon highways”); Commonwealth v. Clancy, 261 Mass. 345, 348, 158 N.E. 758 (1927) (the statute “was intended to regulate the use of motor vehicles upon ways”). In 1928, the Legislature rewrote the e......
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Commonwealth v. Morris M.
...which is the actual language found in G.L. c. 90, § 24(2)(a), as appearing in St.1991, c. 460, § 1. 7. In Commonwealth v. Clancy, 261 Mass. 345, 348, 158 N.E. 758 (1927), the court held that "public way" was an element of use without authority. However, the court was interpreting the 1926 v......