Rawls v. State

• Decision Date: 27 March 1893
• Citation: Rawls v. State, 70 Miss. 739, 12 So. 584 (Miss. 1893)
• Court: Mississippi Supreme Court
• Parties: S. RAWLS v. THE STATE

12 So. 584

70 Miss. 739

S. RAWLS v. THE STATE

Supreme Court of Mississippi

March 27, 1893

March 1893

FROM the circuit court of the first district of Hinds county, HON J. B. CHRISMAN, Judge.

Appellant was convicted in the court below. He made a motion in arrest of judgment, on the ground that the indictment was in the alternative, and that it charged no offense, which motion was overruled. Hence this appeal. The opinion contains a further statement of the case.

Judgment reversed, motion sustained, indictment quashed and case remanded.

Calhoon & Green, for appellant.

The indictment charges no offense. It does not aver that there was any betting at the table or bank. The fact that there is a legal definition of a crime, does not dispense with the necessity of charging in an indictment the facts constituting the offense.

Frank Johnston, attorney-general, for the state.

The objection to the indictment, that it does not charge that there was any betting at the table, was not made in the motion to arrest the judgment, and therefore cannot be considered. But, even if the point were made, it is not well taken. Section 1124, code 1892, does not contain the words "betting" or "gambling." The words "gaming" and "gaming-tables" are the terms employed. The indictment follows the language of the statute, which evidently uses the words gaming or gaming-tables as synonymous with gambling or gambling-tables. It cannot be supposed that the statute intended to make the keeping of a room for playing at cards for amusement a misdemeanor. It means "gambling" by the word gaming, and "gambling-table" by the words gaming-table or bank. Any other construction would make the statute include an act innocent and harmless.

The term "gaming" is similar in significance to the word gambling in its legal acceptance. Bishop on Stat Crimes, §§ 857, 858. There are some exceptions, but I have stated the general rule, and the case at bar does not fall within any of the exceptions.

The statute does not embrace the misdemeanor of gambling as to the participants, but is aimed at the person who keeps the bank or gaming-tables.

Argued orally by S. S. Calhoon, for appellant, and Frank Johnston, attorney-general, for the state.

OPINION

WOODS, J.

The indictment charges that the defendant did unlawfully "keep and exhibit certain gaming-table, commonly called polker-table or bank, at which gaming-table or bank so unlawfully kept or played or exhibited certain games of cards and dice, the names being to your grand jurors now unknown, for money, contrary to the forms of the statute," etc. It is...