Quigley v. Turner

• Citation: 22 N.E. 586,150 Mass. 108
• Parties: QUIGLEY v. TURNER.
• Decision Date: 12 November 1889
• Court: United States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

150 Mass. 108
22 N.E. 586

QUIGLEY
v.
TURNER.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Bristol.

Nov. 12, 1889.

Exceptions from superior court, Bristol county.

150 Mass. 110]E. Avery and T.F. Desmond, for plaintiff.
A.J. Jennings and L.L.B. Holmes, for defendant.

[150 Mass. 108]DEVENS, J.

The case at bar is an action of tort, brought to recover for injuries sustained by an alleged assault on the plaintiff by the defendant, while the defendant was in the act of removing a division fence between the lands of the defendant and those of the plaintiff, after notice to the plaintiff of his intention to remove the same. At the trial, the defendant having testified on his own behalf, the plaintiff was permitted to offer evidence, by a record of this court, of the conviction and sentence of the defendant for the same assault. This evidence was admitted, against the exception of defendant, for the sole purpose of affecting his credibility. Pub.St. c. 169, § 19, provides that the conviction of a crime may be shown to affect the credibility of a witness, and it is urged that this means that the crime shall be of such a nature as in itself to affect the credibility of a witness, and that the mere fact of a conviction for an assault could not be of this [150 Mass. 109]character. The language of the statute is explicit and general, and permits the conviction of any crime to be given in evidence, leaving to the jury to judge how far the credibility of a witness may be affected thereby. Undoubtedly a conviction of some offenses should affect this but slightly, perhaps not at all. Previous to the statute of 1852, c. 312, § 60, the law in regard to the impeachment of witnesses by the evidence of convictions of other offenses had become very unsatisfactory, as pointed out by Chief Justice CHAPMAN in Com. v. Hall, 4 Allen, 305, and artificial distinctions had existed by which, in some instances, evidence of convictions for offenses which bore very strongly on the credibility of a witness was not received, while in others evidence was received of a conviction which could only bear very slightly on this question. It was deemed wiser, therefore, that any conviction of a crime should be received; that such weight should be attributed to it on this question as, in the judgment of the tribunal before which the witness appeared, it deserved. The statute puts all convictions of crime on the same footing,-those which would formerly have excluded a witness those which have heretofore gone to...