DONALD A. WAITE & another vs. SCHOOL COMMITTEE OF NEWTON & others.

COMMONWEALTH vs. FERDINAND DICKINSON.

348 Mass. 767

October 28, 1964

The defendant was found guilty by a judge of the Superior Court sitting without jury of open and gross lewdness and lascivious behavior. The defendant, who came from Taunton on a chilly March night, sought directions to Brockton from the female complainant on the Bridgewater State Teachers College campus. She was unable to hear him and approached his car to discover him naked from the waist down with his left hand "between his legs on his private." "The complainant

Page 768

observed his private organ." The contention of the defendant that it was not sufficiently shown that he intended his act to be "open," G. L. c. 272, Section 16, is without merit. The circumstances of his act are indicative of an intention which made it "open" as defined in Commonwealth v. Wardell, 128 Mass. 52 , 54, and Commonwealth v. Cummings, 273 Mass. 229 , 231.

Exceptions overruled.