Case ID: tex_4/html/0192-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "DipscoMB, J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Prior v. The State.
    la an indictment for playing cards at a public place it is not necessary to stato the name of the owner or occupant; and if stated, it need not bo proved. (Note 83.)
    • Appeal from Dallas. Prior ivas indicted for playing cards in a store-house for retailing spirituous liquors, then and there situated, and being (hen and there occupied and used by one Alexander Bonner as a store-house for retailing spirituous liquors, the same being then and there a public place. There was no proof as to who occupied the store-house in which the witness saw the defendant playing. The defendant’s counsel asked the court to charge the .jury that it was necessary for the State to prove an offense committed at a store-house occupied by Alexander Bonner. The court refused to give the charge asked, and charged the jury that it was not necessary for the 'State to prove by whourthe store-house was occupied.
    
      Everts and Trimble, for appellant.
    The allegation in the indictment as to the occupant of the store-house is descriptivo of the place and necessary to identify the particular offense. Matters of description must be proved as .alleged. (I Stark. Ev., 203.) The place is often an essential ingredient in the offense, as in burglary, etc.; and in .this case it is essential ■ to' the identity of the offense; so that the defendant, upon conviction or acquittal, could plead it to another indictment for the saíne offense. (Bush v. Tlio Republic, 1 Tex. E., 455; 1 Greenl. Ev., 120,' 127, iff 1; Id., 130, n. 4; Id., 132, 133, 136, 137.)
    Hamilton, for appellee.
    It is not necessary, in an indictment for the offense charged in tiffs case, to give the name of the proprietor of the house, and, being nrentioued in the indictment, cannot constitute it a fact material to the charge.. The only proof necessary was as to the facts of the offense charged— the time, character, the place, and the venue. (10 Rick. B., 37.)
   DipscoMB, J.

Tliis is an appeal from a judgment rendered on a conviction for playing cards at a public place.

The only point presented for our consideration arises from a supposed failure in the proof to support the charge in the indictment, as to the place.’ The indictment charges the playing to have been '•'in a store-house for retailing .spirituous liquors,. then and there situated, and then and there being occupied and •used by one Alexander Bonner as a store-house for retailing spirituous liquors, the same being then and there a public place.’’’’ The evidence fully sustained the charge, as made in the indictment, as to the playing and as to its being in a store-house used for retailing spirituous liquors, and in every particular except as to the ownership or occupant or the house. The witiie~s said that lie (iki not know who was the owner~ or the occupant at that thue ; that it had sever~I times been changed from the occupancy of one to aiuotlier. The most material fact, and indeed all that it was necessary to have beoi i averred. was tile playing at a piih'io place ol at a house occupied for ret iing spirit ions liquors. It could not hnporta to allege who owned or or (pied (lie h:>use. Such an inquiry coi l only ha~ , keen essential had the owner or occupant been indicted for permit ting playing at cards in his house. In this indictment it is nothing more than surplusage ; tIme indictment is good without it. Time evidence supports all that is material to have been alleged.

Note 83.-Sublett v. The State, 9 T., 53; The State v. Lopez, 18 T., 33.

Judgment affirmed.