Commonwealth v. Van Stone
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Indictment for being a common seller of intoxicating liquor. At the trial in the superior court, before Fose, J., there was evidence that William C. Thomas and Charles H. Morton, two state deputy constables, with Horatio N. Kimball, a deputy sheriff, all of whom were witnesses for the government, went, with a search warrant, on Sunday, May 19,1867, to the defendant’s place in Dartmouth, which was a house containing a kitchen, dining-room, sitting-room, and other rooms, and…
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Indictment for being a common seller of intoxicating liquor. At the trial in the superior court, before Fose, J., there was evidence that William C. Thomas and Charles H. Morton, two state deputy constables, with Horatio N. Kimball, a deputy sheriff, all of whom were witnesses for the government, went, with a search warrant, on Sunday, May 19,1867, to the defendant’s place in Dartmouth, which was a house containing a kitchen, dining-room, sitting-room, and other rooms, and also a bar-room; that, when they arrived, there were twenty-five or thirty men and women on the premises, some of whom…
1Opinion of the CourtBigelow, C. J.
To say that the evidence offered in support of this indictment would not warrant a conviction, would be equivalent to a declaration that a person could not be found *551guilty of an offence such as is charged against the defendant on circumstantial evidence only. But in criminal as well as in civil cases a verdict may well be founded on circumstances alone, provided the evidence of them excludes every other reasonable hypothesis but that of the guilt of the party charged. The facts proved at the trial of this case were of a nature to lead the minds of the jury to such a conclusion. The evidence…
2Cited by6 opinions
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- Dolan v. McLaughlinNebraska Supreme Court · 1896
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