Camp v. State
| Citation | 58 Fla. 12,50 So. 537 |
| Parties | CAMP v. STATE. |
| Decision Date | 19 October 1909 |
| Court | Florida Supreme Court |
Headnotes Filed November 23, 1909.
Error to Criminal Court of Record, Escambia County; E. D. Beggs Judge.
William Camp was convicted of keeping and maintaining gaming tables and permitting persons to gamble on premises kept by him, and he brings error. Affirmed.
Syllabus by the Court
Where the matter sought to be proved is simply the fact that a written order for the payment of money was made and delivered by the defendant, as contradistinguished from the terms or provisions of such written order, the best evidence rule does not apply, and parol evidence is admissible.
Trial courts are vested with a wide discretion in permitting leading questions to witnesses, and the exercise of such discretion cannot avail as ground of error.
The fact that a defendant, on trial for conducting a gambling house, stood bail surety for parties arrested in the act of gambling on said premises, may be shown in evidence as tending to connect the defendant with the proprietorship of such premises.
COUNSEL Jones & Pasco, for plaintiff in error.
Park Trammell, Atty. Gen., for the State.
The plaintiff in error was informed against, tried, and convicted in the criminal court of record of Escambia county of the crimes of keeping and maintaining gaming tables, and of keeping a gaming room, and or permitting divers persons to gamble in premises kept by him, and of knowingly renting certain premises for the purpose of gaming or gambling, and was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment in the penitentiary, and to review this judgment brings the case to this court by writ of error.
There are 27 assignments of error, but all of them are abandoned here except the third, fourth, sixth, ninth, tenth eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first.
One Brazil, a state witness, was asked the following question 'In what way did you help Mr. Davis running the game'? This question was objected to by the defendant but his objection was overruled, and this ruling constitutes the third assignment of error. There was no error in this ruling. The evidence for the state conclusively made out a case against the defendant of maintaining a gambling room, and the witness to whom the challenged question was propounded testified himself to have been an employé of the defendant in operating such gambling room, and the question objected to tended to elicit these facts. The same witness was permitted over the defendant's objection, to testify to the fact that the defendant had given him two written orders for money on other employés of his who were conducting the gambling rooms, in payment for his own services in and about the same business. The objection urged was that the written orders given were the best evidence, and that the witness should not be permitted to testify as to their contents, unless it were first shown that said orders were lost or destroyed. There is no merit in this, the fourth assignment. The purpose of the testimony was to show that the defendant was the proprietor of the gambling place, and that he employed and paid the witness to conduct it with others. For this purpose the evidence objected to was legitimate, whether the written orders were in existence and accessible or not. See Wilson v. Jernigan, ...
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Bell v. Niles
...v. Jernigan, 57 Fla. 277, 49 So. 44; Florida Cent. & P. R. Co. v. Mooney, 45 Fla. 286, 33 So. 1010, 110 Am. St. Rep. 73; Camp v. State, 58 Fla. 12, 50 So. 537. fully approve of what was held in these cited cases, but are of the opinion that they fail to support the defendant's contention. T......
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Hancock v. State
...or its contents or legal effect are not directly involved in the issues in the case, but relate merely to collateral facts. Camp v. State, 58 Fla. 12, 50 So. 537; v. State, 129 Ala. 92, 29 So. 783; Williams v. State, 149 Ala. 4, 43 So. 720; State v. McKinnon, 99 Me. 166, 58 A. 1028; 25 Am. ......
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Rowe v. State
...389, 59 So. 946, Ann.Cas.1914B, 897; Penton v. State, 64 Fla. 411, 60 So. 343; Johnson v. State, 64 Fla. 321, 59 So. 894; Camp v. State, 58 Fla. 12, 50 So. 537; Falk v. Kimmerle, 57 Fla. 70, 49 So. 504, Ann.Cas. 839. The conduct of the examination of the witnesses, made the basis of assignm......
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Hyatt v. State, 73--1537
...Before BARKDULL, C.J., and HENDRY and HAVERFIELD, JJ.. PER CURIAM. Affirmed. Johnston v. State, 29 Fla. 558, 10 So. 686; Camp v. State, 58 Fla. 12, 50 So. 537; Milton v. State, 91 Fla. 989, 108 So. 886; Horner v. State, Fla.App.1963, 149 So.2d 863; Hamilton v. State, Fla.App.1963, 152 So.2d......