Commonwealth v. Miller

Citations

• 139 Pa. 77
• 21 A. 138
• 1891 Pa. LEXIS 960

Syllabus

<p>[To be reported.]</p> <p>1. While the continuance of a business, admitted or established to be a public nuisance, cannot be justified by the length of time it has been in operation, by the capital invested in it, or by its influence upon the prosperity of the community, yet, where the fact of the public nuisance is controverted, these matters are proper for consideration by the jury.</p> <p>2. A defendant, indicted for maintaining a public nuisance, by operating an oil refinery within city limits, is entitled to have the character of his business determined, not according to any abstract principle, but in the light of all the circumstances peculiar to the business, its place and its surroundings, and their use for manufacturing purposes.</p> <p>3. It was therefore error, in such case, the fact of the public nuisance being denied, to charge that it is no defence to an indictment for maintaining a common nuisance, that the business complained of has been in operation for many years, that the size of the establishment made no difference, and that it was not a defence that the business was a useful one.</p> <p>4. The granting or a refusal of a request by the defendant that the jury be sent to view the alleged nuisance, is fairly within the discretion of the court; and the prevention of comments by defendant’s counsel to the jury, respecting the objection of the commonwealth to such inspection, will be reviewed only in a clear case of infringement upon counsel’s rights.</p> <p>5. An indictment charging, in the same count, that the defendant on a certain date erected a nuisance and from that date continuously until the finding of the indictment maintained the same, is not objectionable on the ground of duplicity, as charging two distinct offences, but is of sufficient form to sustain a general verdict of guilty.</p> <p>6. A doubt that would cause one to pause and hesitate, is, if fairly derived from the evidence adduced on the trial, a reasonable doubt, within the mean