Commonwealth v. Castles
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Indictment for obtaining the signature of John Walsh, Jr. to a mortgage deed to the defendant, upon false pretences that it was a mortgage deed to his father John Walsh, Sen.
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Indictment for obtaining the signature of John Walsh, Jr. to a mortgage deed to the defendant, upon false pretences that it was a mortgage deed to his father John Walsh, Sen. At the trial in the court of common pleas, Sanger, J. permitted Walsh, Sen., against the defendant’s objection, to testify, as part of the proof of the false pretences, to a conversation, in the absence of his son, between himself and the defendant, before the time of obtaining the signature as alleged, in which the defendant advised the witness, in order to prevent the foreclosure of an existing mortgage on his farm, to…
1Opinion of the CourtBigelow, J.
The conversation of the defendant with Walsh, Sen., prior to the making of the false pretences charged in the indictment was admissible as showing the cmimus with which the defendant acted in consummating the alleged fraudulent transaction. It was in the nature of a confession or admission, and although it did not tend directly to prove the false pretences charged, yet it related to the subject matter about which the false pretences were subsequently made by the defendant. It was in fact the inducement or prelude to the fraudulent transaction, and part of the res gestee, which led to the…
2Cases cited1 opinion
- Curtis v. BelknapSupreme Court of Vermont · 1849