Commonwealth v. Hart

An objection to the form of a warrant, issued for the arrest of an accused person and his appearance before a district court, if it could ever have availed him, is waived by his omission to take it in that court, and cannot be taken, for the first time, in the Superior Court on appeal.

Complaint on the Gen. Sts. c. 87, §§ 6, 7, made and sworn to by William W. Pratt before a justice of the peace on December ‘1, 1876, and charging the defendant in due and usual form with unlawfully keeping and maintaining a common nuisance, to wit, a tenement used for the illegal keeping and illegal sale of intoxicating liquors, at Stoneham, “on the first day of July in the year, of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and seventy-six, and .on divers other days and times between that day and the day of making this complaint.” The justice of the peace thereupon issued a v arrant commanding the officers to whom it was addressed to arrest the defendant and bring him before the First District Court of Eastern Middlesex to answer to the Commonwealth on the complaint “ this day made on oath before me, wherein said William W. Pratt complains that the said Edward Hart, at Stoneham, in the county of Middlesex, on the first day of December current, unlawfully did keep and maintain a common nuisance, against the peace of the Commonwealth and the form of the statute in such case made and provided.” In the District Court, the defendant moved to quash the complaint as defective and insufficient. That motion was overruled, and the defendant was tried and convicted, and appealed to the Superior Court; and there moved to quash the proceedings, “ because the warrant does not set forth the substance of the accusation as required by law.” Putnam, J., overruled this motion. The defendant then pleaded guilty; and alleged exceptions.