Commonwealth v. Dunan

• Decision Date: 24 March 1880
• Citation: 128 Mass. 422
• Parties: Commonwealth v. James Dunan
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court

128 Mass. 422

Commonwealth v. James Dunan

Supreme Court of Massachusetts

March 24, 1880

Suffolk. Indictment for the manslaughter of Margaret Fitzgerald, on September 22, 1879, at Boston.

Trial in the Superior Court, before Pitman. J., who allowed a bill of exceptions in substance as follows:

The government offered evidence tending to show that the defendant struck, kicked and threw Fitzgerald upon the ground, as charged in the indictment. George F. King, a physician at the City Hospital, testified for the government as to the condition of Fitzgerald at the time she was brought to the hospital, and after she had received the alleged injuries at the hands of the defendant; and that he was present at the autopsy when it was made by the medical examiner. He was then asked to describe the condition and appearance of Fitzgerald's body at the time of the autopsy. The defendant objected to this question, on the ground that, as the law had provided that autopsies in such cases should be made by the medical examiner for the county and the latter was then present as a witness, his testimony was all that was competent on that point; and that the testimony of Dr. King was not competent.

The judge overruled the objection; and the witness testified to the places and appearance of various wounds and bruises, on matters material to the government's case, and in some material matters varying from the testimony of the medical examiner, who subsequently testified in the case.

Bridget Walters, a sister of the deceased, and a witness for the government, testified, on cross-examination, that she and her sister had lived in Lowell; had gone to Lowell from Salem had come to Salem from Ireland some twenty years ago; and that her sister was a woman of temperate habits, and she had never known her to be intoxicated.

The defendant contended, by the cross-examination of witnesses for the government and by the testimony of a medical expert upon the post-mortem appearances of the liver of the deceased, that she was a person who had the habit of drunkenness; that, at the time of the killing, she used coarse and abusive language to the defendant; and that, by reason of intoxication, she fell upon the sidewalk, and thus received the injury which was the cause of her death.

Mary Clark testified for the defence that she had known Bridget Walters six or seven years, and became acquainted with her when said Bridget and her...