Commonwealth v. Haines
Commonwealth v. Haines
Opinion of the Court
Opinion by
This is an appeal by the commonwealth from an order and judgment of the court below quashing an indictment. The indictment charged the defendant, in the precise language of sec. 42 of the Act of March 31, 1860, P. L. 382, with the offense which in the common language of the people has very long been designated as “keeping a disorderly house.” The indictment charged the offense to be “to the common nuisance and disturbance of the neighborhood,” and it is conceded that it accurately defined the offense, in the very language of the statute. The only ground upon which the indictment was challenged was that the information upon which it was founded was insufficient to sustain it. The information, duly signed and sworn to before the justice of the peace, charged that the defendant “did keep and maintain (and does now) keep — a certain common, ill-governed and disorderly house and place to the encouragement of idleness, gaming, drinking, and other misbehavior, to (he community and disturb
The order and judgment of the court of quarter sessions, quashing the bill of indictment, are reversed, the indictment is reinstated, and the record is remitted for further proceedings according to law.
Reference
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- Syllabus
- Criminal law — Indictment—Information—Keeping disorderly house— Nuisance. An information averring that the defendant “did keep and maintain and does now keep a certain common, ill governed and disorderly house and place to the encouragement of idleness, gaming, drinking and other misbehavior to the community and disturbance of the good citizens of this commonwealth, tesiding and being in the neighborhood,” is sufficient to support an indictment charging the defendant, in the precise language of the forty-second section of the Act of March 31,1860, P. L. 382, with keeping a disorderly house “to the common nuisance and disturbance of the neighborhood.” In such a case it is immaterial that the house is not charged to be a common nuisance in the information.