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eBook details

• Title: Snyder v. Justices Superior Court
• Author : Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts
• Release Date : January 08, 1933
• Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
• Pages : * pages
• Size : 66 KB

Description

RUGG, Chief Justice. This is a petition to establish exceptions taken at a hearing on a petition for a writ of mandamus. The facts are not in dispute. They are set forth in the petition except certain dates shown by the court record. The petitioner was convicted of murder in the first degree by verdict of a jury rendered in the superior court on May 24, 1932. The case came before this court on appeal on assignment of errors (Commonwealth v. Snyder, 282 Mass. 401, 185 N.E. 376) and, no error being found, it was ordered that there be judgment on the verdict. Thereafter the petitioner was sentenced to death on April 18, 1933, and the sitting of the superior court at which that sentence was imposed came to an end on May 1, 1933. On June 9, 1933, the petitioner offered for filing in the superior court a motion for a new trial. On the same day it was presented to the trial Judge, who refused to receive or consider it and declined to direct the clerk of the court (he having refused to file it) to receive it for filing, and ruled that the motion was not properly before him. The trial Judge refused to allow an exception to or an appeal from that ruling. The grounds alleged in that motion related chiefly to newly discovered evidence touching the insanity of the petitioner, a defense discussed when the case was here on appeal. On the same day the petitioner also presented to the trial Judge a motion for revocation of the sentence on substantially the same grounds as those set forth in his motion for a new trial. On this motion the trial Judge made a notation that if properly before him it was denied. The petitioner having claimed an exception and an appeal, the trial Judge made a further ruling that he would not accept the motion, or order the clerk of the court to accept it for filing (he having refused to file it), and ruled that the motion was not properly before him for consideration. Thereupon, the petitioner filed a petition for a writ of mandamus setting out in substance the facts which have been narrated and praying that the trial Judge or one of this associates be ordered to direct reception of the motions for filing by the clerk of the court and to hear and pass upon them when so filed. The petition for the writ of mandamus was heard, as alleged in the present petition to establish exceptions, 'upon the sole question of directing orders of notice to issue to the defendants or any of them on said petition.' The single Justice refused to direct the issuance of orders of notice and the petitioner excepted. The petitioner thereupon filed a bill of exceptions. The single Justice disallowed the bill of exceptions, indorsing thereon 'I Hereby certify that the allegations of the bill of exceptions are true, but as I am of the opinion that the allowance thereof will result in prosecution of exceptions which ought not to prevail, I disallow the bill.' The present petition to establish those exceptions was thereupon brought. The commonwealth filed a motion to dismiss the petition on several grounds. The motion for revocation of sentence in the circumstances here disclosed is like a motion for new trial. It is a misnomer as applied to the grounds alleged. If filed at the same sitting when sentence was imposed, or before final judgment after rescript, and directed to error of fact or law, it may have pertinency. But it is not relevant to the facts here disclosed. It is governed by the same principles as is the motion for a new trial and need not be separately considered. Commonwealth v. Lobel, 187 Mass. 288, 72 N.E. 977; Commonwealth v. Sacco, 261 Mass. 12, 15, 158 N.E. 167; Commonwealth v. Phelan, 271 Mass. 21, 171 N.E. 53. See Commonwealth v. Marrelli, 266 Mass. 113, 116, 165 N.E. 2.

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