Commonwealth v. Towle

• Decision Date: 07 January 1885
• Citation: Commonwealth v. Towle, 138 Mass. 490 (Mass. 1885)
• Parties: Commonwealth v. Joshua E. Towle
• Court: Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

138 Mass. 490

Commonwealth v. Joshua E. Towle

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

January 7, 1885

Argued November 24, 1884.

Middlesex.

Complaint to the Third District Court of Eastern Middlesex, in two counts, alleging that the defendant, on March 16 and 23 1884, respectively, the same being the Lord's day, at Cambridge, unlawfully sold intoxicating liquors to a person unknown, not having any license, appointment, or authority to make such sale. Trial in the Superior Court, before Bacon J., who allowed a bill of exceptions, in substance as follows:

The defendant was in the employ and acting under the authority of Francis Locke, the proprietor of Porter's Hotel Cambridge, who held an innholder's license and license of the first class to sell liquors to be drunk on the premises covering the period of the alleged sales. Evidence was introduced by the government tending to show sales in the hotel by the defend ant on the two days alleged, each of which was Sunday, to per sons unknown. The government's witnesses testified that they did not know and could not say that the persons to whom the alleged sales were made were not guests of the hotel, who had resorted to the hotel for food or lodging.

The judge refused to rule, as requested by the defendant, that the burden of proof was upon the government to show that the persons to whom the alleged sales were made were not guests of the hotel who had resorted to the hotel for food or lodging; and ruled that the burden was upon the defendant to show that the persons to whom the alleged sales were made were such guests. The jury returned a verdict of guilty; and the defendant alleged exceptions.

Exceptions overruled.

G. F. Piper, for the defendant.

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

Field C. Allen, & Colburn, JJ., absent. Devens, J.

OPINION

Devens J.

It is the contention of the defendant, -- the government having shown that the alleged sale of intoxicating liquors was made on the Lord's day, and the defendant having proved that he had a license to sell intoxicating liquors and also an innholder's license, -- that it was an erroneous instruction to the jury that the burden of proof was on the defendant to show that the persons to whom the alleged sales were made were guests of the hotel who had resorted thereto for food or lodging.

In all criminal prosecutions in which the defendant relies for his...