54 Ky. 531 | Ky. Ct. App. | 1855
delivered the opinion of the Court—
This indictment charges Kennedy .with the offense of betting on an election, which it specifies by stating, that on the 7th of August, 1854, he did bet and wager $100 with Wm. K. Elliott, that he, Kennedy, would get and receive at the Little Fork precinct, in Carter county, one hundred votes for the office of clerk of the County Court of said county, for which .office he was then and there a candidate, at the election then and there held under the laws and constitution of Kentucky. It concludes against the peace and dignity of the commonwealth, without reference to the statute. And the indictment having been quashed upon demurrer, the case has been brought here by the commonwealth. Assuming the indictment to have been founded on a statute, the omission of the words “against the form of the statute,” would, according to the former law, have been fatal ‘to it if it describes an offense denounced by one of our statutes. (McCullough vs. Commonwealth, Hardin,
The material question is, whether this indictment describes sufficiently any offense denounced and punished by statute; and we think it does describe, with all requisite precision, the offense described in the first section of the act of March, 1854. (Session Acts, 1853-4, pages 72-3.) That act declares, that if any person or persons shall wager or bet any sum of money or anything else of value, upon any election under the constitution and laws of this State, or of the United States, he or they so offending shall forfeit and pay the sum of $100 each, to be recovered by indictment, &c. Upon comparing the act described in the indictment with that described in this sentence of the statute, it seems impossible to raise a question, unless upon the assumption that the statute denounces betting upon an election as an entirety, that is upon the whole election or its final result, while the bet stated in the indictment is upon the vote' in. a single precinct, or part of the constituent body, and is thus upon a part only of the election and not upon the whole.
We suppose, however, the Legislature did not intend to make any such distinction between the whole and a part. Without saying that a bet upon the vote of a single individual in a pending election, would be, according to the common understanding, a bet on the election, we are satisfied that a bet upon the vote of a county in a general election or of a precinct in a district or county election, would, according to the common understanding and the intent of the statute, be a bet upon an election. A differ
Wherefore, the judgment is reversed and the cause remanded, with directions to overrule the demurrer, and for further proceedings.