State v. Hall

• Decision Date: 06 January 1916
• Docket Number: No. 19008.,19008.
• Citation: 181 S.W. 1135
• Parties: STATE v. HALL.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

181 S.W. 1135

STATE v. HALL.

No. 19008.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

January 6, 1916.

Appeal from St. Louis Circuit Court; William T. Jones, Judge.

Fred Hall, being charged with maintaining a room for betting on horse races and using it for apparatus for communicating information in regard to horse races, demurred to the indictment for duplicity. From an order sustaining the demurrer, the State appeals. Affirmed.

John T. Barker, Atty. Gen., and W. T. Rutherford, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Kenneth C. Sears, of Jefferson City, of counsel), for the State. Moses N. Sale, of St. Louis, for respondent.

ROY, C.

The trial court sustained a demurrer to the indictment herein, and the state has appealed. The body of the indictment is as follows:

"The grand jurors of the state of Missouri within and for the body of the city of St. Louis, now here in court, duly impaneled, sworn, and charged, upon their oath present that Fred Hall, on the 4th day of December, one thousand nine hundred and fourteen, at the city of St. Louis aforesaid, at or about number 1730 Olive street, in the city of St. Louis aforesaid, unlawfully and feloniously did occupy a certain room, and did then and there unlawfully and feloniously in said room have a book, sheet and blackboard for the felonious purpose of reporting and registering bets and wagers and selling pools upon the results of certain trials and contests of speed and power of endurance of a beast, to wit, certain horses, said trials and contests of speed being commonly known as a horse race, and did then and there unlawfully and feloniously in said room have a telephone and telegraph instrument for the felonious purpose of communicating information in said city of St. Louis for the felonious purpose of recording and registering bets and wagers and selling pools upon the result of certain trials and contests of speed and power of endurance of beasts, to wit, certain horses, said trials and contests of speed being commonly known as a horse race."

The demurrer raised various objections to the indictment, but the respondent has briefed only one of them, that of duplicity. The Attorney General concedes that the objection is well founded.

In State v. Blakely, 184 Mo. 187, 83 S. W. 980, defendant was charged with having set up and kept a roulette wheel, a crap table, and a chuck-a-luck table, whereon he enticed and permitted various persons to gamble. It was held that the indictment was subject to demurrer for duplicity.

...