Commonwealth v. Kennon
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Indictment in four counts, charging the defendants with four separate assaults upon Etta Wood. Trial in the Superior Court, before Putnam, J., who allowed a bill of exceptions in substance as follows: To prove the assaults, the government offered Wood as a witness, who testified that the defendants made the four different assaults upon her charged in the indictment, and gave the particulars of each; and her testimony was corroborated by other evidence offered by the…
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Indictment in four counts, charging the defendants with four separate assaults upon Etta Wood. Trial in the Superior Court, before Putnam, J., who allowed a bill of exceptions in substance as follows: To prove the assaults, the government offered Wood as a witness, who testified that the defendants made the four different assaults upon her charged in the indictment, and gave the particulars of each; and her testimony was corroborated by other evidence offered by the government. On cross-examination, she testified that she was born in Charlestown, where her parents still lived, and was…
1Opinion of the Court
By the Court.
The purpose for which the excluded evidence was offered, as appears by the bill of exceptions, and as has been assumed in the argument for the defendants, was not to prove insanity, but to prove a lying habit of mind or a propensity to lie; the evidence offered was only that the witness had lied on other occasions, which would present collateral issues, and was not competent as independent evidence; and it does not appear that it was offered by way of cross-examination of the witness, nor, if it was, that the defendant sought to have it admitted in the discretion of the judge.
Exce…
2Cited by4 opinions
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