On March 19, 1974, Alfred W. Blago, a State police officer on duty at the East Boston exit from the Callahan Tunnel, heard one of the automatic toll collection machines signal that a vehicle had passed through on its way out of the tunnel without a deposit by the operator of the proper twenty-five cent toll. Blago noted the license plate number of the car, but having no more than a side and back view of the operator, who was alone in the vehicle, he could only observe that the operator had long shoulder length hair and wore glasses. Blago did not stop the car and apprehend the operator. It may be surmised he was not in a position to do so.
Blago retrieved a copper slug from the machine, further assuring himself that the operator had violated Part Two, Section 4, of the “Rules and Regulations for the Use of the Sumner Tunnel and the Lt. William F. Callahan, Jr., Tunnel” (as amended by Amendment No. 1 effective June 22, 1967), which provides that “[n]o person shall do . . . any act with intent to evade payment of toll . . ..” 1 This rule was promulgated by the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, which has responsibility for *288 operation of the Sumner and Callahan tunnels, under the power granted to it by St. 1958, c. 598, § 5 (d), “To establish rules and regulations for the use of the . . . [tunnels], and to provide penalties for the violation of said rules and regulations not exceeding fifty dollars for each offence, which may be recovered by indictment or complaint before a district court and shall be . . . paid to the Authority.” 2
From the license plate number it was learned that the car was registered to the defendant, Joseph C. Pauley. Blago accordingly swore out a complaint in the East Boston District Court charging that Pauley, “being the driver of a motor vehicle which had used the Callahan Tunnel . . . did . . . deposit a copper slug ... in a meter at the end of the tunnel with intent to evade payment of the toll.” After trial, Pauley was found guilty and fined the maximum $50, with costs of $12.50. Pauley appealed to the Jury of Twelve Session of the Municipal Court of the City of Boston. He then duly waived a jury. At the trial in the Municipal Court, Blago was the only witness. He testified to the incident at the tunnel as recounted above. The defendant, who was present in court, had *289 short hair and was not wearing glasses. Blago said he could not, “under oath,” make positive identification of the defendant as the operator. It was, however, stipulated that the defendant was the registered owner, and that the operator at the time and place testified to had attempted to evade payment of the toll in violation of the tunnel regulation. The Commonwealth finally offered the tunnel rules and regulations in evidence, directing the court’s attention to Part Five, Section 2, which provides that “[i]f a vehicle is operated within tunnel property in violation of any provision of these rules and regulations and the identity of the operator of such vehicle cannot be determined, the person in whose name such vehicle is registered shall be deemed prima facie responsible for such violation.” 3 The regulation was received over the defendant’s objection and exception. The defendant offered no evidence. The judge found him guilty and fined him $25, with costs of $6.25. No findings were made. The case is before us on a substitute bill of exceptions, and the issue is the validity as a matter of due process of the last quoted regulation, 4 particularly the use made of it to furnish an evidential link to prove that the defendant *290 was the person who committed the act with intent to evade the toll. 5
1. We turn to a closer reading of the regulation to ascertain the meaning of the expression “prima facie responsible.” Cognate expressions such as “prima facie evidence” occur often in Massachusetts in civil contexts and have acquired a well settled meaning there. See
Cook
v.
Farm. Serv. Stores, Inc.
The expression “prima facie evidence” or the like also appears in criminal contexts. The effect of such evidence, unrebutted, cannot be so strong as in civil cases because of the established principle that a verdict may not be directed against a defendant in a criminal prosecution, see Wigmore, Evidence, § 7495, p. 312 (2d ed. 1940), with the corollary proposition that the trier of fact, judge or jury, cannot be compelled to find against the defendant as to any element of the crime. The handling of unrebutted “prima facie evidence” in a criminal case in the Commonwealth is illustrated by the judge’s charge to the jury in
Commonwealth
v.
Anselvich,
As the present case is criminal (see
Commonwealth
v.
Federico,
2. A line of cases in the Supreme Court of the United States has discussed the constitutional validity of the use in criminal trials of permissive inferences or presumptions structurally the same as the Massachusetts prima facie inference at bar. The court has upheld such inferences as applied to certain situations, and struck them down as applied to others. It has had trouble developing a rationale for its decisions. But the problems encountered are clear. If too loosely allowed, permissive inferences would tend to compromise the constitutional canon in criminal
*293
cases that “the Due Process Clause protects the accused against conviction except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged.”
In re Winship,
To review the Supreme Court cases briefly:
Tot
v.
United States,
That standard was restated in
Leary
v.
United States,
The suggestion that the required standard might be more severe than that mentioned in
Tot
and elaborated in
Leary
also appeared in
Turner
v.
United States,
Learned commentators thought the
Turner
case in its fourth result embraced the stricter standard.
14
But in the latest case in the series,
Barnes
v.
United States,
The
Barnes
case involved a charge of knowingly possessing stolen checks; challenged was the common law
*297
permissive inference that (as the trial judge charged) “[possession of recently stolen property, if not satisfactorily explained, is ordinarily a circumstance from which you may reasonably . . . find, in the light of the surrounding circumstances shown by the evidence in the case, that the person in possession knew the property had been stolen.”
But if the defendant was being in any degree exposed to conviction because of a failure to explain, i.e., to pro
*298
duce, was there not an implicit infringement of his privilege against self-incrimination? This question was answered in the negative, at least for the situation before the
Barnes
court, with reliance on
Yee Hem
v.
United States,
In the present case, taking what common sense suggests about the relationship of registration to operation together with the failure to produce, we think, following Barnes v. United States, that the judge as trier could justly find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, although he was not obliged to do so. 16 Cf. Ashford & Risinger, Presumptions, Assumptions, and Due *299 Process in Criminal Cases: A Theoretical Overview, 79 Yale L. J. 165, 183 (1969). As to the matter of production, in the normal course of events a defendant who was not using his car at the time of the alleged infraction should be able to demonstrate that fact with minimum effort without himself testifying, or, with no more effort, indicate why he was not in a position to make the demonstration and so should be accounted innocent. The present decision does not open the way to the unrestricted creation of statutory inferences resting on feeble foundations, for the constitutional questions would appear in a different light if the connection between basic and inferred facts were not intimate, or rebuttal evidence were less available to a defendant, or direct evidence were more readily available to the Commonwealth. 17
Exceptions overruled.
Notes
Section 4 reads as follows: “Evasion of Toll. No person shall do, or attempt to do, any act with intent to evade payment of toll or to defraud the Authority. Failure to stop at the toll booth or refusal to pay a toll by a driver about to use the tunnel from East Boston to Boston or who has used the tunnel from Boston to East Boston shall be deemed an act done with intent to evade payment of toll.”
Statute 1952, c. 354, § 5 (i), amended by St. 1955, c. 653, § 1, had allowed the Turnpike Authority “ [t]o establish rules and regulations for the use of the turnpike,” and the 1958 enactment authorizing tunnel regulations was modeled on that provision. The regulations established under the two statutes are generally similar, due allowance being made for the difference between turnpike and tunnel conditions; thus Part Two, Section 6, of the “Rules and Regulations for the Use of the Massachusetts Turnpike, Including the Boston Extension Thereof,” provides that “ [n]o person . . . shall do . . . any act with intent to . . . evade payment of toll.”
Besides the rule concerning evasion of toll, the rules promulgated for the tunnels govern matters such as the types of vehicles which are prohibited from using the tunnels, speeding, driving to endanger, driving under the influence of liquor, obedience to orders of tunnel police, staying in a lane, and leaving adequate space between vehicles.
Drivers in the tunnels (and on the turnpike) are also subject to the general statutes governing the operation of motor vehicles in Massachusetts and providing criminal penalties for violations.
Part Three, Article VIII, Section 2, of the turnpike rules and regulations is to the same effect.
It could be argued that St. 1958, c. 598, § 5(d), empowering the Authority to make rules governing the use of the tunnels, falls short of authorizing a regulation making the owner of a vehicle “prima facie responsible” for violation of tunnel rules: such a regulation, it could be urged, is not one governing the use of the tunnels, but is rather a regulation of evidence or procedure in the courts. Cf.
Thomes
v.
Meyer Store Inc.
There is no comparable use of ownership as proof of responsibility for traffic infractions in the general traffic laws of the Commonwealth, G. L. cc. 89, 90.
Connecticut and Pennsylvania have statutes making ownership prima facie evidence of operation at the time of a traffic law violation. Pa. Sts. Anno. Tit. 75, § 1212 (1971) (general provision). Conn. Gen. Sts. Anno. Tit. 14, § 14-107 (Supp. 1975) (specified offenses). See n. 16 below.
Among the decisions establishing these propositions are:
Cook
v.
Farm Serv. Stores, Inc.
The only other evidence in the case, that the officer’s fleeting impression of the driver of the car did not match the appearance of the defendant in court, may have been introduced simply to indicate the occasion for the use of the prima facie inference: the regulation invokes the inference when “the identity of the operator of the vehicle cannot be determined.”
In general, the police will prefer, if they can, to apprehend a violator on the spot. We need not deal with the speculative question of the application of the regulation where the police make no attempt to apprehend a violator when they could easily have done so, but go against the registrant instead.
In re Winship applies although the criminal offense is a minor one. As the court noted, a conviction not entailing loss of liberty may still stigmatize the offender.
It follows from
Winship
that the burden of persuasion may not be shifted to the defendant on any element of the crime. For example, as to the matter of alibi, see
Commonwealth
v.
McLeod,
The nature of a permissive inference or presumption is illuminated by
Turner
v.
United States,
See, too, the trial judge’s charge set out in
Barnes
v.
United States,
Suppose in the present case we add only evidence of the time of day when the episode occurred. Common sense might suggest to the trier that passenger cars are more likely to be driven by their registered owners during commuting hours than during working hours.
That ease of access by the defendant to evidence which can rebut a presumption is not by itself a basis for validating the presumption, is also forcefully stated in
Turner
v.
United States,
The statutory presumptions were (i) that unexplained possession of certain drugs connoted knowledge of illegal importation of the drugs, and (ii) that possession of the drugs without tax stamps connoted purchase of the drugs from a source other than an original stamped package. The presumptions held as to heroin, but failed as to cocaine; it was the tax stamp presumption with regard to cocaine to which the court applied the language about a “sufficiently real” possibility.
See McCormick, Evidence, § 344 (2d ed. 1972); LaFave & Scott, Criminal Law, § 21 (1972); Christie and Pye, Presumptions and Assumptions in the Criminal Law: Another View, 1970 Duke L. J. 919, 923, n. 24; Holland and Chamberlain, Statutory Criminal Presumptions: Proof Beyond a Reasonable Doubt? 7 Valp. L. Rev. 147, 160-161 (1973).
The court’s footnote 11, appearing at the end of the quoted text, goes on to say: “It is true that the practical effect of instructing the jury on the inference arising from unexplained possession of recently stolen property is to shift the burden of going forward with evidence
*298
to the defendant. If the Government proves possession and nothing more, this evidence remains unexplained unless the defendant introduces evidence, since ordinarily the Government’s evidence will not provide an explanation of his possession consistent with innocence. In
Tot
v.
United States,
The Connecticut and Pennsylvania statutes making ownership prima facie evidence of operation at the time of a traffic law violation (see n. 5 above) have been upheld by the courts. See State v. Schonrog, 2 Conn. Cir. 239 (App. Div. 1963); Commonwealth v. Foulke, 22 D. & C. (Pa.) 135 (1934). Foulke based its result on the *299 “rational and reasonable connection between the facts proved and the ultimate fact presumed,” saying that the inference “would seem to be a natural one and based upon a common experience that as a general rule the owner of a car drives his own vehicle,” and on the opportunity given to the defendant to present facts in his defense to meet the force of the rule. 22 D. & C. at 138. Schonrog reasoned similarly, and a subsequent Connecticut case, State v. Knudsen, 3 Conn. Cir. 458, 462-463 (App. Div. 1965), reaffirming Schonrog, quoted Foulke as support for its conclusion.
Permitting conviction for possession of a given article unless the accused produces evidence of having a license, can be justified by the rationale based on probabilities outlined in the text if there is a sufficient likelihood that persons having the possession are not licensed; it would typically be very easy for the accused to come forward with evidence of license. (The
Turner
case is near this model so far as it upholds a conviction based on a presumption that heroin lacking tax stamps was procured from a package without tax stamps.) Another theory has been suggested which can support the casting of a burden on the accused with respect to license: where the Legislature has power to prohibit conduct entirely, and means instead to regulate it closely, it may in furtherance of the regulation impose on a defendant the burden of showing that he has been granted a special privilege. See LaFave & Scott, Criminal Law, § 21 (1972). This court has upheld, as applied to a prosecution for carrying a
*300
pistol in an automobile without license to do so, a statute, G. L. c. 278, § 7, which provides that “[a] defendant in a criminal prosecution, relying for his justification upon a license . . . shall prove the same; and, until
so
proved, the presumption shall
be
that he is not so authorized.”
Commonwealth
v.
Davis,
It is perhaps worth mentioning that the Turnpike Authority could have avoided constitutional questions in the present situation by turning the offense into a “public welfare” offense (see
Commonwealth
v.
Graustein & Co.
