State v. Godos
| Decision Date | 05 June 1931 |
| Docket Number | 31038 |
| Citation | 39 S.W.2d 784 |
| Parties | STATE v. GODOS |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Roy A Fish, of St. Louis, for appellant.
Stratton Shartel, Atty. Gen., and Albert Miller, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
Appellant Mike Godos, was charged in an information filed in the circuit court of the city of St. Louis, on the 23d day of January, 1930, with the crime of setting up and keeping a certain gambling device, commonly called a slot machine. Upon a trial appellant was, on the 27th day of February, 1930 convicted as charged in the information and his punishment fixed at imprisonment in the city jail for a term of six months. Judgment and sentence were rendered accordingly. From this judgment appellant appeals to this court.
On behalf of the state the proof was that on October 7, 1929, defendant was operating and was in charge of a pool room at 1521
Market street, St. Louis. The poll tables were in the rear. A cigar counter was in the front near the Market street entrance, and a device called an automatic mint vending machine was upon a stand between the cigar counter and the door. August Weller, a policeman, went into the pool room on the day in question and found defendant sitting behind the cigar counter and near the slot machine. Weller, who was in plain clothes and appeared to be just another patron, inquired of defendant what the machine was. Defendant informed him that it was a slot machine, and explained how it operated. If a 5-cent coin was placed in the slot, and a side lever was pulled, the operator would surely receive a package of mints. A second lever had to be pulled to get the package of mints. And if the player was lucky, brass tokens might, sometimes, drop from the machine. The tokens could be exchanged for merchandise or soda or anything that the fortunate man might care to buy at the counter, each token having 5 cents purchasing value. Or the tokens could be used to operate the machine, but a package of mints would not come out when the token was placed in the slot and the lever pulled. The only return which the machine might make occasionally to the investment of a token would be other tokens. The player could also buy tokens from defendant who had a supply in his cash register. After Weller had used 5-cent coins to play the machine he had defendant change a marked $ 1 bill. Twenty-five cents of the change was in tokens. These and other tokens which he either won from the machine or bought from defendant Weller used to operate the machine, defendant standing by the while. Many times he received no tokens in exchange for the deposited token. When he quit playing he had eight tokens with which he bought cigarettes from defendant. The tokens bore the legend: 'For amusement purposes only.' When a coin or token was slipped into the slot and the lever was pulled, three cylinders behind glass in the face of the machine revolved for a time and came to rest, presenting to view what the policeman called 'wise cracks,' such as 'You will die sometime' and 'You should wear spats.' Whether the amusement to be had with the tokens was the merriment of the cylinders or was the thrall of chance does not appear. But the record shows that defendant would and did receive the tokens as a medium of exchange for merchandise at his counter. When Weller ceased from play and had bought cigarettes with tokens he called in other officers of the gambling squad who had been waiting without. Defendant was arrested, and the tokens which Weller had given defendant for the cigarettes, also the slot machine and marked $ 1 bill, were seized for use as evidence at the trial.
Defendant testified that he was serving the pool players while Weller played the machine, and did not watch the play. He changed the $ 1 bill, at Weller's request, and gave him coins and no chips. Weller then asked for and received 25 cents worth of chips, which defendant explained were good for mints. Weller bought cigarettes, and defendant denied that he received or accepted tokens in payment for them. Weller, said defendant, laid the tokens near the cash register, hurried out, and returned with the other police officers. Defendant testified that the machine belonged to a certain novelty company in St. Louis, which had placed the machine in the pool room about ten days before the arrest on a basis of an even division of the money which the machine took in. But defendant bought the mints at 21/2 cents per package. It will be recalled that, when a 5-cent coin was used, the machine gave up a mint package to the operator. But not so when a token was used. Defendant denied that he informed Weller that the tokens could be used for trade. He insisted that they could be used only for the amusement of operating the machine. Several neighboring merchants testified that the reputation of defendant was good.
I. Defendant, in his motion for a new trial, urged that the verdict is against the law and the evidence. This assignment of error is not considered or referred to in the defendant's brief, and it may be treated as abandoned. State v. Frederick, 318 Mo. 548, 300 S.W. 678. But treating this assignment of error as before us it should be ruled against defendant.
II. A further ground for a new trial was that the court erred in giving instruction No. 3 because this instruction was a comment upon the evidence given by defendant. This assignment also was abandoned upon appeal. But without setting out this instruction we may say that it is a form of instruction which has been attacked often over a long period of years on the same ground. It has been approved in...
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