Stanley-Thompson Liquor Co. v. People

• Decision Date: 05 November 1917
• Docket Number: 8905.
• Parties: STANLEY-THOMPSON LIQUOR CO. v. PEOPLE.
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

168 P. 750

63 Colo. 456

STANLEY-THOMPSON LIQUOR CO. v. PEOPLE.

No. 8905.

Supreme Court of Colorado

November 5, 1917

Error to District Court, Las Animas County; A. Watson McHendrie Judge.

Proceedings by the People of the State of Colorado against the Stanley-Thompson Liquor Company, in the matter of certain gambling devices. To review an order that such devices be destroyed, the Liquor Company brings error. Judgment affirmed.

T. S McChesney, of Trinidad, for plaintiff in error.

Leslie E. Hubbard, Atty. Gen., and Bertram B. Beshoar, Asst. Atty Gen., for the People.

TELLER, J.

The Stanley-Thompson Liquor Company, plaintiff in error, was the owner of certain gambling devices, some of which were stored in the back room of its place of business, and some in a public warehouse. The record shows that they were purchased some three years before the proceedings here under review as a part of the property taken over by the plaintiff in error on purchasing a wholesale liquor business. They were ordered to be destroyed under the authority of section 1795, R. S 1908, and it is of this order that complaint is made.

The undisputed evidence is that they had never been used or offered for use during the three years since their purchase. It was admitted that they were gambling devices, and the testimony showed that they could be used for no other purpose.

The trial court expressed the opinion that the sole question to be determined was 'whether a gambling device not then in actual use for gambling is subject to this law,' and held these devices subject to said law. This is the question argued in the briefs; counsel for plaintiff in error urging also that if the law be held to apply in this case it is unconstitutional in that it deprives persons of their property without due process of law. The statute in question reads as follows:

'It shall be the duty of all sheriffs, coroners constables, police officers of cities, and other officers charged with executing the laws of this state, whenever it shall come to the knowledge of any such officer that any person has in his possession any cards, tables, checks, balls, wheels or gambling devices of any nature or kind, used or kept for the purpose of gambling or playing at any game of chance; or that any cards, tables, checks, balls, wheels or gambling devices used or kept for the purposes aforesaid may be found in any place, to seize and take such cards, tables, checks, balls, wheels or gambling devices, and convey the same before some judge or justice of the peace of the county in which the same may be found; and it shall be the duty of such judge or justice of the peace to inquire of such witnesses as he shall summon to appear before him in that behalf, touching the nature of such gambling devices, and if such judge or justice shall ascertain that the same are used or kept for the purpose of gambling or playing at any game or games of chance, it shall be his duty to destroy the same. It shall be lawful for officers in executing the duties imposed upon them by this section to break open doors for the purpose of obtaining possession of any such gambling devices; and all persons having possession of any of the articles aforesaid shall be conveyed before some judge or justice of the peace of the county in which they may be found, and held or committed for appearance at the next term of the district court to answer to any indictment or information which may be preferred against them or any of them.'

Counsel for plaintiff in error rely on McCoy v. Zane, 65 Mo. 11, in which the court construed a statute directing the destruction of devices 'used or kept' for the purpose of gambling. It was there held that the statute applied only to such devices as are in use for gambling, or set up for that purpose. The court, however, came to that conclusion from a consideration of a section of the statute which, it was said, showed what was meant by the terms 'used and kept.' Our statute gives no such aid to its interpretation, and the Missouri case is therefore of no great help to us.

It is well...