Case ID: f-cas_26/html/1253-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "But THE COURT", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Case No. 15,768.
    UNITED STATES v. MILBURN.
    [5 Cranch, C. C. 390.] 
    
    Circuit Court, District of Columbia.
    March Term, 1838.
    Gaming—Faro-Bank—Indictment.
    An indictment for keeping a “gaming-table,” is insufficient; it should charge the keeping of a common gaming-table. An indictment for keeping a faro-bank is also bad; it should be a common faro-bank; or “a faro-bank, the same being a common gaming-table.”
    [Cited in Stettinius v. U. S., Case No. 13,387.]
    [Cited in People v. Sponsler, 1 Dak. 289, 46 N. W. 460.]
    Indictment [against George Milburn] containing two counts: 1st, That the defendant kept “a gaming-table, against the form of the statute,” &e. 2d. That he kept “a faro-bank against the form of the statute,” &c.
    W. L. Brent, for defendant,
    demurred to the whole indictment, because neither count charges the keeping of a common gaming-table, or a common faro-bank, or a faro-bank, the same being a common gaming-table, and cited U. S. v. Cooly [Case No. 14,859], and U. S. v. Ringgold [Id. 16,167].
    Mr. Key, contra,
    contended that it was sufficient to charge the offence in the words of the statute, and cited 1 Chit. 281. The words of the twelfth section of the penitentiary act are, “that every person duly convicted of keeping a faro-bank or gaming-table shall be sentenced to suffer imprisonment and labor, for a period not less than one year, nor more than five years.”
    
      
       [Reported by Hon. William Cranch, Chief Judge.]
    
   But THE COURT

(CRANCH, Chief Judge, contra, as to the second count)

stopped Mr. Brent in reply, and quashed the indictment. See Archb. Cr. Pl. 24.