Stearns v. State

Citations

• 81 Md. 341
• 32 A. 282
• 1895 Md. LEXIS 75

Syllabus

<p>Criminal Pleading■ — Diiplicity—Charging Offence Disjunctively— Negativing Exception in Statute.</p> <p>The Act of 1894, ch. 232, making it unlawful to gamble or make pools on the result of any horse race, etc., contained an exception providing that it should not be unlawful to make a pool or bet within the grounds of any agricultural association upon a race held within the same on the same day. A criminal information against the defendant charged that he made pools, etc., in this State on the result of a race at Sheepshead Bay in the State of New York.' Held, That such averment sufficiently negatived the exception in the statute.</p> <p>The said Act provided that it should be unlawful for any person to gamble or make books and pools on the result of any trotting race or running race of horses, or race of any kind, or to keep or use or knowingly suffer to be used any house for the purpose of making or selling any book or pool, or otherwise betting upon the result of any trotting race or running race. The information against the defendant charged that he unlawfully made books and pools on the result of a trotting race or running race of horses on a certain race track ; that he unlawfully kept a house for the purpose of making or selling pools on the result of a certain trotting or running race ; that he used a house for said purposes, etc. Upon demurrer, Held, that the information was bad for duplicity, in that it charged the alleged offence disjunctively or in the alternative.</p>