171 Ind. 1 | Ind. | 1908
“Before me, John P. Riley, clerk of the Orange Circuit Court, personally appeared William M. Baggerly, ■who, being first duly sworn on his oath, says .that on July 3, 1906, at the county of Orange, in the State of' Indiana, Edward Bridgewater, being then and there a male person, did then and there unlawfully visit a certain gambling-house, then and there being kept for the purpose of gaming, contrary to the form of the statute in such case made and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the State of Indiana-
William M. Baggerly.
*3 Subscribed and sworn to before me this 6th day of July, 1906. John P. Riley, clerk.”
Indorsed as follows:
“State of Indiana, Orange County, SS. Orange Circuit Court. July term, 1906. The State of Indiana w Edward Bridgewater. Affidavit for visiting gaming-house. [Witnesses, etc.]. Piled in open court July 6, 1906. John P. Riley, clerk. Approved by me, W. H. Yoyles, prosecuting attorney.”
On motion of appellee the affidavit was quashed, and the court rendered judgment discharging him without day. Prom this judgment the State has appealed, and assigns that the court erred in quashing the affidavit.
We are advised by the brief of the Attorney-General that the affidavit was held insufficient by the lower court, because there was no description or designation of the gambling-house visited by the accused. Counsel for appellee insist that such a description is essential in order to render the affidavit sufficient to withstand a motion to quash. On the other hand, counsel for the State contend that the pleading is amply sufficient: (1) Because the charge is made in the language of the statute defining the offense; (2) Because the crime is charged to have been committed in Orange county, Indiana; (3) that it was not necessary to describe the building, grounds or place visited by appellee in Orange county, for the reason that the statute does not make any particular place or locality an element of the offense, nor can any judgment rendered upon conviction have reference to any particular place or locality; (4) because it can be understood without doubt by the language employed in the affidavit that an offense was committed within the jurisdiction of the Orange Circuit Court.
We have no inclination to depart from the well-settled principles of criminal pleading, but the argument of appellee’s learned counsel, that when the affidavit herein is measured by these principles it must be held insufficient in charging a public offense under the statute in question, is not tenable. It may be noted that the statute declares, that “whoever, being a male person, frequents or visits a gambling-house or houses” shall be fined. It can be affirmed that this express language fully, directly, without any uncertainty or ambiguity, designates the particular acts or elements necessary to constitute the offense which the law intended to prohibit. In criminal pleading, it has been held by this court, for a long period of time, that in a ease in which the particular acts constituting the crime are clearly defined by the statute, as in the one here involved, it will be sufficient to charge the crime in the language of the statute. State v. Bougher (1833), 3 Blackf. *307; State v. M’Roberts (1836), 4 Blackf. 178; State v. Watson (1839). 5 Blackf. 155; Marble v. State (1859), 13
In the text-book last cited (p. 529), it is said: “If the criminal character of an act depends upon the locality in which it is committed the allegation of place becomes material, and does not then merely determine the venue, but furnishes an essential feature in the description of the offense and must be accurately laid, and matter of local description must be proved. But the sufficiency of the description of such place depends upon the relation of the place to the particular offense with which it is connected.”
In State v. New (1905), 165 Ind. 571, we also held that it was not necessary, in an indictment for permitting a horse to run upon a public highway, to describe the highway other than as being in a particular county. On the same point see, also, State v. Burgett (1849), 1 Ind. 479; State v. Armstrong (1851), 3 Ind. 139.
If, as our cases affirm, it is not necessary for the State, in a prosecution for keeping a gambling-house, or for 'keeping and exhibiting gambling devices, or in a charge against a person for permitting his horse to be run in a horse-race along a public highway, to describe in the pleading, in order to render it sufficient, the particular gambling-house kept by the accused person, or the place or house where the gambling devices in question are kept or exhibited, or the particular highway in the county upon which the accused person suffered his horse to run in a prohibited race, certainly then, under the statute here involved, no tenable argument can be advanced in support of the contention that the State, in a prosecution against a person for visiting a gambling-house, should describe in the affidavit or indictment the particular gambling-house visited. The statute in this case in no way makes any particular place or locality an essential element of the offense defined, and the judgment of the court, on conviction of the accused person, in no manner can operate upon or have reference to any particular place or. house where the crime was committed^ As the
We conclude, and so hold, that the affidavit in this case is sufficient as against any of the objections pointed out and urged by counsel for appellee. It follows, therefore, that the court erred in sustaining the motion to quash, for which error the judgment is reversed, and the cause remanded, with instructions to the lower court to overrule the motion to quash the affidavit.