Commonwealth v. Kennedy
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Indictment for keeping a tenement used for illegal sale of intoxicating liquors. At the trial in the superior court, before Reed, J., a police officer testified that the defendant occupied the basement of a building containing several tenements and occupied by several tenants; that the entrance to her tenement was in the basement, and there was another entrance to the other tenements and that he had never been inside the building and did not know whether there was any…
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Indictment for keeping a tenement used for illegal sale of intoxicating liquors. At the trial in the superior court, before Reed, J., a police officer testified that the defendant occupied the basement of a building containing several tenements and occupied by several tenants; that the entrance to her tenement was in the basement, and there was another entrance to the other tenements and that he had never been inside the building and did not know whether there was any communication between her tenement and the others. There was no evidence whether intoxicating liquor was or was not kept in…
1Opinion of the CourtBigelow, C. J.
The evidence was clearly competent, not as by itself establishing the guilt of the defendant, but as a link in the chain of circumstances, and, in connection with other facts which were proved, as tending to show’ that the tenement kept by the defendant was used for the unlawful purposes alleged in the indictment, A fact which, standing alone, would be consistent with innocence, may, when taken in connection with other facts, become significant evidence of guilt.
Exceptions overruled.
2Cited by5 opinions
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