State v. Worden

• Decision Date: 09 February 1906
• Citation: 27 R.I. 484,63 A. 486
• Parties: STATE v. WORDEN.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

63 A. 486

27 R.I. 484

STATE

v. WORDEN.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

Feb. 9, 1906.

Argued before DOUGLAS, C. J., and DUBOIS, BLODGETT, JOHNSON, and PARKHURST, JJ.

William B. Greenough, Atty. Gen., for the State. Clarence A. Aldrich and Herbert A. Rice, for defendant.

DUBOIS, J. This case comes upon demurrer to the three counts of an indictment, charging the defendant with aiding in the maintenance of a common nuisance in violation of the two following provisions of Gen. Laws R. I. 1896, c. 92, § 5: "Every person who shall let any building or tenement owned by him or under his control for any of the purposes enumerated in section one of this chapter, or who shall knowingly permit any such building or tenement, or part thereof, to be so used while under his control, * * * shall be deemed and taken to be guilty of aiding in the maintenance of such nuisance," etc.

The first count of the indictment in sub stance charges that the defendant, on the 12th day of May, 1903, at South Kingstown, in the county of Washington, being then and there the owner of a certain building and tenement (describing it), and then and there having said building and tenement under his control, did unlawfully lease and let said building and tenement unto one William B. Holbrook, to be used, occupied, and kept by the said William B. Holbrook for a grogshop, tippling shop, and for the illegal sale and keeping of intoxicating liquors, and for the habitual resort of intemperate, idle, dissolute, noisy, and disorderly persons, he, the said Leander A. Worden, then and there well knowing that said building and tenement was to be used, occupied, and kept by the said William B. Holbrook for the purposes aforesaid, whereby and by force of the statute in such case made and provided the said Leander A. Worden is deemed and taken to be guilty of aiding the said William B. Holbrook in the maintenance of a common nuisance. By the second count thereof it is charged that the defendant, i being the owner of the premises described, and then and there having said building and tenement under his control, unlawfully did knowingly permit the said William B. Holbrook to use said building and tenement while said building and tenement was under his, the said Leander A. Worden's, control, ! for a grogshop, etc., he, the said Leander A. Worden, then and there well knowing that the said William B. Holbrook was j using said building for the purposes aforesaid, whereby and by force of the statute in such case made and provided, the said Leander A. Worden is deemed and taken to be guilty of aiding the said William B. Holbrook in the maintenance of a common nuisance, etc. In the third count it is charged that the defendant, on the 12th day of May, 1903, at South Kingstown, in the aforesaid ...