8 Mo. App. 455 | Mo. Ct. App. | 1880
delivered the opinion of thé court.
This is a proceeding instituted in the Police Court of the city of St. Louis for violation of a city ordinance. Chap. 20, art. 2, sect. 6. The defendant is charged, first, with keeping a gambling-table and gambling device commonly called a keno bank, at which divers persons, at the time-stated, played at games of chance called keno, for money and property, contrary to the ordinance ; secondly, with betting money upon the game ; and further, the premises being under his control, with permitting a gambling-table called a keno bank to be used at the premises named, for the purpose of playing at the game of chance called keno. Sect. 6 of the ordinance named is as follows: “Any person who’ shall, in this city, set up or keep any gaming-table or gambling device, at which any game of chance shall be played for money or property, or anything representing money or property, or shall, at auy such table or device, or at any game of chance, bet, win, or lose any money or property,, either in specie or by means of anything representing the-same, or shall suffer any such table or device, at which any game of chance is played, to be set up or used in any tenement in his possession or under his control, shall "be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction therof, be-fined not less than fifty nor more than five hundred dollars.” The defendant was convicted in the court below, and fined $150 and costs.
In the court below, and here, the question turned on the sufficiency of the evidence to warrant a conviction. The real inquiry is not as to any matter of law, but resolves itself into one which it is the peculiar function of the triers of the fact to answer. Neither in criminal nor in civil cases ought the appellate courts to interfere with the triers of fact, who see the witnesses and hear the testimony, in the exercise of their office in drawing inferences from facts directly proved, unless it is apparent that there is no fair or reasonable basis for the inference of fact which has been drawn.
It is certainly a fair inference from these facts that the game of keno was in process, was being played for money, and that the defendant was one of the players. It is not easy to see what ground there is for any distinction between his acts in sitting at the table with the keno-card and buttons
But the case against him is strengthened by his own testimony. He denies he was playing, or ever played keno in his life. He says he went into this keno-room about two minutes before he was arrested, but he offers no explanation as to the facts testified to by the officers. Under these circumstances, we cannot reverse the judgment. The State v. Andrews, 43 Mo. 470.
The judgment is affirmed.