Linden Park Blood Horse Ass'n v. State

• Decision Date: 14 December 1893
• Citation: 55 N.J.L. 557,27 A. 1091
• Parties: LINDEN PARK BLOOD HORSE ASS'N v. STATE.
• Court: New Jersey Supreme Court

27 A. 1091

55 N.J.L. 557

LINDEN PARK BLOOD HORSE ASS'N

v. STATE.

Court of Errors and Appeals of New Jersey.

Dec. 14, 1893.

(Syllabus by the Court.)

Error to court of oyer and terminer; Van Syckel, Judge.

The Linden Park Blood Horse Association was convicted of keeping a common gaming house, and brings error. Reversed.

Courtlandt & R. W. Parker, for plaintiff in error.

R. V. Lindabury, for the State.

BEASLEY, C. J. The indictment in this case charged as foUows, viz.: That the defendant "unlawfully did keep and maintain a certain common, ill-governed, and disorderly house, and in the said house, for its own lucre and gain, certain persons, as well men as women, of evil name and fame and of dishonest conversation, then, and on the said other days and times, there unlawfully and willingly did cause and procure to frequent and come together; and the said men and women in the said house of it, the said the Linden Park Blood Horse Association, at unlawful times, as well in the night as in the day, then and on the said other days and times, there to be and remain, drinking, tippling, fighting, whoring, and misbehaving themselves, unlawfully and willfully did permit, and yet does permit," etc. At the trial under this indictment the defendant was convicted of the offense of keeping a common gaming house,—an offense, it will be observed, that is not among the specifications of misconduct that were alleged to have made the house of the defendant a disorderly one. The only disorder proved, or attempted to be proved, to the jury, was the prevalence of habitual gambling on the premises of the defendant.

The only question to be considered is whether, under such an indictment as the one present upon this record, such proof and the ensuing conviction were legitimate? The crucial test of the inquiry obviously is whether the specifications of the acts that constitute the house a disorderly one are necessary parts of the charge. That they are such is demonstrably clear. No one with any knowledge of law would say that a general charge of keeping a disorderly house, without any indication of the circumstances that make it such, would satisfy the legal role of criminal pleading. As well allege that a man committed, without further description, a larceny, as to charge, in the same uncircumstantial fashion, that a man kept a disorderly house. It is the primary rule respecting indictments that they should be framed with sufficient certainty. "For this purpose [the language is that of Chitty] the charge must contain a certain description of the crime of which the defendant is accused, and a statement of the facts by which it is constituted, so as to identify the accusation, lest the grand jury should find a bill for one offense, and the defendant be put upon his trial in chief for another, without any authority." "Such statement of facts is...