Commonwealth v. Pomeroy
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Indictment for murder. Trial before Gray, C. J., and Morton, J., who allowed a bill of exceptions, in substance as follows: The defendant, a boy of the age of fourteen years and five months at the time of the offence, was tried on an indictment for the murder of Horace R. Millen, a child four years old, committed at Boston on April 22, 1874. The prisoner was arrested on the evening of the same day.
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Indictment for murder. Trial before Gray, C. J., and Morton, J., who allowed a bill of exceptions, in substance as follows: The defendant, a boy of the age of fourteen years and five months at the time of the offence, was tried on an indictment for the murder of Horace R. Millen, a child four years old, committed at Boston on April 22, 1874. The prisoner was arrested on the evening of the same day. On the next day he was taken by the officers to view the body of his victim, and admitted having killed the deceased ; and on the afternoon of that day one of the trustees of the State Reform…
1Opinion of the CourtWells, J.
Upon the question of sanity at the time of com mitting an offence, the acts, conduct and habits of the prisoner at a subsequent time may be competent as evidence in his favor. But they are not admissible as of course. When admissible at all, it is upon the ground, either that they are so connected with or correspond to evidence of disordered or weakened mental condition, preceding the time of the offence, as to strengthen the inference of continuance, and carry it by the time to which the inquiry relates, and thus establish its existence at that time ; or else that they are of such a…
2Cases cited2 opinions
- Shailer v. BumsteadMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1868
- Commonwealth v. CoeMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1874
3Cited by23 opinions
- Moore v. United StatesSupreme Court of the United States · 1893
- United States v. Lawrence T. Day. United States of America v. Eric J. SheffeyCourt of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit · 1979
- Commonwealth v. JohnsonMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1905
- Lane v. MooreMassachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · 1890
- State v. RogersIdaho Supreme Court · 1917
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