Commonwealth v. Cotton

• Decision Date: 07 January 1885
• Parties: Commonwealth v. Jacob Cotton
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

138 Mass. 500

Commonwealth v. Jacob Cotton

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

January 7, 1885

Argued November 24, 1885.

Norfolk.

Indictment alleging that the defendant, on November 22, 1883, at Quincy kept intoxicating liquors with intent to sell the same unlawfully in this Commonwealth. At the trial in the Superior Court, before Mason, J., the jury returned a verdict of guilty; and the defendant alleged exceptions, which appear in the opinion.

Exceptions sustained.

R. Lund & J. L. Eldridge, for the defendant.

H. N Shepard, Assistant Attorney General, for the Commonwealth.

OPINION

W. Allen, J.

The defendant was found on a certain day in charge of a horse and wagon in the town of Quincy. The wagon contained a quantity of ale, lager beer, and porter, which were intoxicating liquors, and hop beer, ginger ale, and a liquor called "tonic," all of which were not intoxicating. He was thereupon charged with keeping intoxicating liquors with intent to sell the same unlawfully.

There was evidence that the horse, and the wagon and its contents, belonged to a firm in Boston, who employed the defendant to deliver the contents of the wagon to their customers. Exception was taken by the defendant to the admission of evidence tending to show sales of lager beer and porter in the town of Quincy from the delivery wagon of the firm by the defendant, while he was in charge of such wagon as driver, three and four months before the occasion in question. The circumstances of the different transactions are so similar, that actual sales of intoxicating liquors from the wagon in Quincy upon the former occasions have some tendency to show an intention to sell them upon the latter occasion. The lapse of time is a circumstance which affects the weight of the evidence, and, in some cases, might require its exclusion. In this case, it does not appear that the judge erred in admitting it.

It appeared that the defendant's employers kept ale, lager beer, and porter for sale, and also hop beer, ginger ale soda, and mineral waters; that they were licensed to sell ale, lager beer, and porter in Boston, but were not licensed to sell them in Quincy or in Milton; that the defendant, on the occasion in question, was upon the usual route for the wagon driven by him, which was through a part of Boston, where his employers had customers for the intoxicating liquors which they were licensed to sell, through Quincy and Milton, in which places there were customers for the non-intoxicating liquors, returning through another part of Boston, where there were customers for the intoxicating liquors. The defendant offered to prove that his instructions from his employers were to drive over the route, and to supply their customers in Boston with the intoxicating liquors, and their customers in Quincy and Milton with the non-intoxicating liquors, and not to sell any intoxicating liquors in Quincy or Milton. The presiding...