State v. Holden

• Decision Date: 14 May 1907
• Citation: 203 Mo. 581,102 S.W. 490
• Parties: STATE v. HOLDEN.
• Court: Missouri Supreme Court

102 S.W. 490

203 Mo. 581

STATE v. HOLDEN.

Supreme Court of Missouri, Division No. 2.

May 14, 1907.

1. GAMING—"CRAP TABLE"—INFORMATION.

An amended information duly verified and charging that on the ____ day of February, 1906, defendant feloniously set up, kept, and operated a certain crap table, adapted, devised, and designed for the playing of games of chance for money or property, sufficiently charged the offense of keeping, operating, and maintaining a gambling device in violation of Rev. St. 1899, § 2194 [Ann. St. 1906, p. 1404].

2. CRIMINAL LAW—NEW TRIAL—MOTION—OBJECTIONS.

An allegation in a motion for a new trial of a criminal case that the court erred in admitting illegal and irrelevant testimony was insufficient where the testimony referred to was not pointed out.

3. SAME—INSTRUCTIONS.

Where an information for maintaining and operating a gambling device was filed in March 1906, an instruction that, if defendant in that year or at any time therein prior to February 26th did willfully, etc., keep a certain gambling device, then he was guilty, etc., was not objectionable as misleading.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Jasper County; Howard Gray, Judge.

Kid Holden was convicted of setting up, keeping and operating a crap table, and he appeals. Affirmed.

Pepper, Clay & Sheppard and M. R. Lively, for appellant. The Attorney General and N. T. Gentry, for the State.

BURGESS, J.

On February 26, 1906, the prosecuting attorney of Jasper county filed an information, and on March 6, 1906, he filed an amended information, duly verified, by which he charged that the defendant, on the _____ day of February, 1906, feloniously did set up, keep, and operate a certain table and gambling device, commonly called a "crap table," which table was adapted, devised, and designed for the purpose of playing games of chance for money and property. Defendant was tried on March 13, 1906, and convicted, and his punishment assessed at 12 months in the county jail. After filing formal motions for new trial and in arrest of judgment, which were overruled, defendant appealed.

The state's evidence tended to prove that Sheriff Marrs, Deputy Sheriff Marquiss, and Deputy Sheriff Kier raided a certain room in the second story over the Woodbine saloon, in the city of Joplin, on one Saturday night in the month of February, 1906. Prior to forcing their way into said room these officers went up in an alley, climbed over a fence and got up on a flat roof of a one-story building, and looked into the windows to see what was going on in said room. They saw a number of people up there, including the defendant, who were engaged in gambling. The defendant was standing behind a crap table, dealing craps, and several others were around the table on the outside, rolling two dice across the table. The defendant was paying the bets and cashing in the checks. The others were standing on the outside of the table and were placing their checks down on the table and rolling the dice. The table was identified by the officers as what is commonly termed a "crap table," and was about four feet high, with a railing around it about four or five inches high, and was eight feet long by three or four feet wide, and covered with a green cloth. On one side of the table, about the center thereof, there was a little space cut out, and in this space the defendant was standing while the game was in progress. On this table were numbers corresponding with numbers that can be made on a pair of dice, and on this particular table were 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10. The word "come" was also printed on the table, and this word is one that is used by gamblers in playing said game of chance. Dice were also found in the drawer of the table, and the defendant was seen catching the dice...