Commonwealth v. Dame
This text of 8 Mass. 384 (Commonwealth v. Dame) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.
Opinion
It is said in the text books that persons convicted of treason, felony, or the crimen falsi, are incompetent to be witnesses. Roscoe on Ev. 78; 1 Greenl. on Ev. § 373. But the offence, of which Cummings was convicted, was [385]*385neither of these three, and we .nowhere find that a conviction of any other offence renders the convict incompetent to testify.
In the case of United States v. Brockius, 3 Wash. C. C. 99, it was decided that a person convicted of the crime of assault and battery with intent to murder was, nevertheless, a competent witness. That case is analogous to the present.
Exceptions overruled.
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8 Mass. 384, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/commonwealth-v-dame-mass-1851.