Commonwealth v. Haskins
| Decision Date | 12 January 1880 |
| Citation | 128 Mass. 60 |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
| Parties | Commonwealth v. Criton G. Haskins & another |
Argued September 16, 1879
Hampshire. Indictment charging the defendants in one count with the larceny of a cow, and in the other with receiving the same cow, knowing the same to have been stolen.
At the trial in the Superior Court, before Allen J., there was evidence tending to show that a cow was stolen, and that soon after the larceny, the cow was in possession of the defendants. The government went to the jury upon both counts and the judge gave instructions to the jury upon the law with reference to the offences charged in both counts, to which no objection or exception was taken, and especially instructed the jury that there was no evidence in the case to authorize a verdict of guilty on the second count.
The jury returned a verdict of guilty against both defendants upon both counts; and this verdict was taken and affirmed by the court in the usual way against both defendants. Upon the rendering of the verdict the defendants filed a motion in arrest of judgment, on the ground that the verdict was inconsistent and void in law, and no judgment could be legally rendered upon it.
The district attorney thereupon moved for leave to enter a nolle prosequi as to the second count. The judge, against the defendants' objection, allowed this to be done; and overruled the motion in arrest of judgment. The defendants alleged exceptions.
Exceptions sustained.
No counsel appeared for the defendants.
G Marston, Attorney General, for the Commonwealth.
OPINION
There is in this case no question affecting the power of the district attorney to enter a nolle prosequi; such an entry affects only the proceedings subsequent to it, but the record of what is antecedent to it remains.
By that record it appears that there had been the larceny of a cow, and but one larceny of that cow. The defendants were charged in one count of the indictment with such larceny, and in the second count with having received her knowing her to have been thus stolen. It is certain that the defendants could not be guilty upon both counts, because in law the guilty receiver of stolen goods cannot himself be the thief; nor can the thief be guilty of a crime of receiving stolen goods which he himself had stolen.
The presiding judge, as the record shows, instructed the jury...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Garcia v. State, 88-205
...jury must be told that the taking and receiving, being but a single transaction, constitute, of course, only one crime. See Commonwealth v. Haskins, 128 Mass. 60. (This, of course, does not bar Congress from outlawing and punishing as separate offenses the severable ingredients of one compo......
-
People v. Dercole
...precise charge upon which the jury found guilt (see Regina v. Evans, 7 Cox C.C. 151 (Q.B.); Tobin v. People, 104 Ill. 565; Commonwealth v. Haskins, 128 Mass. 60; cf. State v. Speight, 69 N.C. 72). In other cases verdicts which found only one of two defendants guilty of conspiracy (see Unite......
-
Com. v. Simcock
...some factual inconsistency with the evidence at trial, but they do not represent a legal impossibility. Contrast Commonwealth v. Haskins, 128 Mass. 60, 61 (1880); Commonwealth v. Carson, 349 Mass. 430, 434-436, 208 N.E.2d 792 (1965). A factual inconsistency is not a sufficient basis for set......
-
Commonwealth v. Thompson, 14–P–886.
...123, 125, 128, 866 N.E.2d 948 (2007). See Commonwealth v. Nascimento, 421 Mass. 677, 683, 659 N.E.2d 745 (1996), citing Commonwealth v. Haskins, 128 Mass. 60, 61 (1880) (“It is well established that it is inconsistent in law for a defendant to be convicted both of stealing property and of r......