Commonwealth v. Hughes
| Decision Date | 07 November 1882 |
| Parties | Commonwealth v. Peter Hughes |
| Court | United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Supreme Court |
Bristol. Complaint, under the Pub. Sts. c. 207, §§ 26, 27, for drunkenness by the voluntary use of intoxicating liquor. At the trial in the Superior Court, before Colburn J., the jury returned a verdict of guilty; and the defendant alleged exceptions. The facts appear in the opinion.
Exceptions overruled.
L. L Holmes, for the defendant.
G. Marston, Attorney General, for the Commonwealth.
OPINION
The statutes provide that, if a male person is guilty of drunkenness, and he has been convicted of a like offence twice before within the next preceding twelve months, he shall be subject to a greater penalty than for a first or second conviction. Pub. Sts. c. 207, § 27.
In the case before us, the complaint is for the offence of drunkenness committed on April 16, 1882. It alleges that the defendant had been, within the year preceding, twice previously convicted of the offence of drunkenness, namely, on June 9, 1881, and on June 27, 1881, It appeared that the prior conviction of June 27, 1881, was upon a complaint alleging two prior convictions within a year, namely, on April 12, 1881, and on June 9, 1881.
The defendant contends that the conviction of June 9, 1881, having been relied upon by the government to aggravate the offence committed on June 27, cannot be again relied on to aggravate the offence of April 16, 1882. But this is founded upon a misconception of the purpose and effect of the statute. If a man is guilty of drunkenness three or four or five times within a year, each offence is a distinct offence.
The third or fourth or fifth is not the less an offence because it is aggravated by the fact that he has been twice within the year convicted of a like offence. The first or the second is still a distinct offence of drunkenness, although it has been relied on to aggravate the third. The effect of thus using it is not to pardon or condone or merge the offence. It is thus used merely as a part of the description and character of the third offence, and may be again relied on as a part of the description of a fourth or fifth offence committed within the year. The object of the statute is to prevent the repeated commission of similar offences by imposing severer penalties for each successive violation of law, and thus to save persons from becoming old and hardened offenders. This object would be thwarted if the fourth or fifth offence must be regarded as a light offence, merely because the third is a graver offence aggravated by two prior...
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...or subsequent offense.' Precedents we think support this view include: Ex parte Rogers, 20 Cal.App.2d 397, 66 P.2d 1237; Commonwealth v. Hughes, 133 Mass. 496; People v. Heath, 237 App.Div. 209, 261 N.Y.S. 15, App. dis'd 261 N.Y. 662, 185 N.E. 782; People ex rel. Costa v. Wilson, 161 Misc. ......
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