Haring v. State

• Decision Date: 17 June 1889
• Citation: 17 A. 1079,51 N.J.L. 386
• Parties: HARING v. STATE.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

17 A. 1079

51 N.J.L. 386

HARING

v. STATE.

Supreme Court of New Jersey.

June 17, 1889.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Error to court of quarter sessions, Passaic county; HOPPER, INGLIS, and SANDERSON, Judges.

Argued at February term, 1889, before DEPUE, VAN SYCKEL, and KNAPP, JJ.

John W. Griggs, for plaintiff in error. Wm. B. Gourley, for defendant in error.

VAN SYCKEL, J. The plaintiff in error was convicted in the Passaic quarter sessions of keeping a disorderly house. The offense consisted in keeping a room in the city of Paterson for several months in 1887, to which persons commonly resorted for the purpose of betting upon horse-races run at various places throughout the country The question to be decided is whether, under the law as it stood in 1887, the defendant below was subject to indictment for keeping a disorderly house. On the 15th of February, 1811, an act was passed which made horse-racing indictable as a nuisance, and declared that all wagers on such races should be utterly void. Revision 1821, p. 550, §§ 1, 3. In 1835, section 1 of the act of 1811 was repealed. P. L. 1835, p. 169. March 19, 1846, "An act to prevent horse-racing" was passed, which by its second section made betting upon horse-racing indictable as a misdemeanor, and by its sixth section made all wagers upon such racing utterly void. Rev. St. 575; Laws 1846, p. 133. In 1871 a supplement passed to the act to prevent gaming provides "that all wagers, bets, or stakes made to depend upon any race, or upon any gaming by lot or chance, or upon any lot, chance, casualty, or unknown or contingent event whatever, shall be unlawful; and all contracts for or on account of any money or property, or thing in action, so wagered, bet, or staked, shall be void." This act of 1871 is now-found substantially in the Revision as sections 1 and 3 of the act to prevent gaming. Revision, 458. The second section of the act of 1846 was incorporated in the crimes act in the Revision, and is the fifty-sixth section of that act. Id. p. 237. That section subjected to indictment a person who made a single bet upon a horse-race. By force of a supplement passed March 11, 1880, betting upon horse-racing was not thereafter indictable. Laws 1880, p. 196, § 1. This act did not in any wise affect the first section of the act concerning gaming, (Revision, 458,) which makes wagers upon any race unlawful. It merely relieved from indictment the person who made a bet, but did not legalize such bet. A pronounced public policy against betting as a vice has found clear expression in the legislation referred to. In McClean v. State, 49 N. J. Law, 471, 9 Atl. Rep. 681, Chancellor RUNYON says: "Under the fifty-sixth section of the act for the punishment of crimes, (Revision, 237,) betting upon horse-races was a criminal offense. While the supplement to that act, passed in 1880, (P. L. 1880, p. 195,) so amended that section as to repeal the provision making such betting a misdemeanor, it did not repeal or affect the provisions of the act to prevent gaming, (Revision, 458,) which declared all wagers, bets, or stakes made to depend upon any race to be unlawful." Betting was no longer indictable and punishable as a crime, but it was still interdicted. It was still unlawful, and against the declared policy of the law. It was one of those things which, as the trial judge said, "the government of the state was seeking to suppress." Under the legislation to which reference has been made, the keeper of a place where betting was habitually carried on was unquestionably amenable to indictment. In State v. Williams, 30 N. J. Law, 104, the chief justice says: "Any place of public resort, whether an inn, a dwelling-house, a store-house, or any other building, in which illegal practices are habitually carried on, is a disorderly house." In the same case Mr. Justice ELMER says: "A house to which people promiscuously resort for purposes injurious to the public morals is a disorderly house." Our court of last resort in McClean v. State, supra, accepted this definition of a disorderly house in its broadest sense, and there declared that "the place kept by McClean was kept in order that the public might resort thereto, and engage in the unlawful practice of betting upon horse-races, and such practices were habitually carried on there. Any place of public resort in which illegal practices are habitually carried on is a public nuisance, and a person who keeps such a place is guilty of an indictable misdemeanor."

But the defendant relies for immunity from criminal prosecution upon the act of March 30, 1887, entitled "A further supplement to an act entitled 'An act for the punishment of crimes,' approved March 27, 1874," which is as follows: "That the performance of any act exempted from punishment under and by virtue, or by the operation and effect, of chapter one hundred and forty-seven of the Public Laws of this state of the session of 1880, entitled 'Supplement to an act entitled "An act for the punishment of crimes" (Revision,) approved March 27, 1874,' shall render all persons performing such acts amenable and subject to all the provisions of the act entitled 'An act to prevent gaming,' approved March 27, 1874, so far and to the extent only that the acts of such person shall be deemed unlawful in any civil suit, but not in any other...