Commonwealth v. Coughlin

• Decision Date: 24 February 1903
• Citation: 182 Mass. 558,66 N.E. 207
• Parties: COMMONWEALTH v. COUGHLIN.
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

182 Mass. 558

66 N.E. 207

COMMONWEALTH v. COUGHLIN.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Worcester.

February 24, 1903

COUNSEL

Rockwood Hoar, Dist. Atty., and Geo. S. Taft, Asst. Dist. Atty., for the Commonwealth.

A. P Rugg ans Chas. W. Saunders, for defendant.

OPINION

LORING J.

This is a complaint for keeping liquor with intent to sell the same contrary to law. The prisoner had an innkeeper's license for the Clinton House, and licenses to sell liquor of the first and fourth classes. The evidence of an intent to sell contrary to law consisted in testimony to sales made before 11 o'clock p. m. on Sunday to persons who did not resort to the hotel for food or lodging, and to sales made after 11 p. m.

One Bartlett, a deputy sheriff, and the complainant in the case was called as a witness for the government. He testified to having taken out a search warrant, and to what he found on going to the hotel with the search warrant after 11 o'clock on Sunday night. He also testified that he went to the office of Buttrick & Stone, who were attorneys and counselors at law, at 8 o'clock in the evening of the Sunday in question, and that among other persons who were at the office during that evening was one of the selectmen of the town of Clinton. In cross-examination of this witness, counsel for the prisoner 'asked with reference to his conversation with one of the selectmen (Mr. Shedd) just before and concerning the contemplated complaint and raid, and had said that he desired to have the jury taken into full confidence.' It also appeared 'during Bartlett's examination that Shedd had stated that he had acted as a selectman in requesting him to investigate the manner in which the hotel was run, and thereafter it was elicited on cross-examination of the witness Bartlett that four of the five selectmen had made no complaint with reference to the conduct of the defendant's hotel nor had they indicated any desire to have a raid made, to him.' Four or five of the selectmen of Clinton were called by the prisoner, and testified to his good reputation, and, on cross-examination by the government, 'that they had received no complaints, formal, written, or otherwise, of the conduct of the defendant's hotel.' This evidence went in without objection. Shedd, the fifth selectman, was later called as a witness by the district attorney, who 'asked him what complaints he, as a member of the board of selectmen, had received with reference to the conduct of the defendant's place of business, which he had communicated to the other members of the board, and also asked him with reference to certain cases, by name, of persons who had complained to him, as a selectman, with reference to the conduct of the hotel, and occurrences that had taken place there, which also he had communicated to the remaining members of the board.' This evidence was objected to by the prisoner, and was excluded by the court.

In his closing argument to the jury, the district attorney argued that the prisoner's objection to the testimony of Shedd which the government had offered, and which, on the prisoner's objection, had been excluded, 'showed that the defendant was a man who did not desire a full disclosure of all the facts surrounding the case, and that the fact of this objection tended to show that he had not told the truth with reference to what had taken place at his hotel, and with reference to his ignorance of what had been done in the conduct of his hotel during the day in question, by the clerks under his employ.' The counsel for the prisoner immediately interrupted, and asked the court to restrain the district attorney from pursuing this line of argument. This the court refused to do, and the defendant took an exception. The district attorney was allowed to, and did, finish 'his line of argument.' In his charge to the jury the presiding judge instructed them that, under the privilege of cross-examination, irrelevant questions may be put to test the credibility of a witness and to show his bias, but that the real issue should not be lost sight of; that the real issue was, did the prisoner keep liquor with intent to sell the same contrary to law? that the fact that one or more selectmen of Clinton wished, or did not wish, to prosecute the prisoner, was not legal evidence upon that issue. No other reference was made to the objection of the prisoner to the argument of the district attorney. This exception must be sustained. It has been suggested in the brief for the government that the evidence was admissible after all. But the fact that it was admissible, if it was admissible, is of no consequence. What the prisoner complains of is that, after the evidence had been ruled out, the government was allowed to make an argument prejudicial to him, based upon the fact that he had insisted on the trial being conducted according to the rules laid down by the law. For the purpose of the trial, the presiding judge had decided that the evidence was not competent. That made the evidence incompetent for the purpose of the trial. It was error for the presiding judge, after ruling the evidence out, to allow the government to make an argument...