Case ID: va_35/html/1056-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM —", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Farmer v. Commonwealth. Hodnett v. Same.
    December, 1837.
    Gaming — Public Place — What Constitutes — Case at Bar. — On a day when many persons are assembled at a tavern for the purpose of mustering, a party engage in gaming in a barn, 200 yards distant from the tavern bouse, and in a separate enclosure, though on the same plantation, the barn being 60 or 70 yards in the rear of another barn in which spirits are sold by the tavern keeper : HELD, the first mentioned barn is a public place, within the meaning of the act to prevent unlawful gaming. ,
    In the circuit superiour court of law and chancery for Pittsylvania county, at October term 1836, the grand jury made a presentment against James A. Farmer, Matthew B. Hodnet't and Isham Griffee, “for unlawful playing at cards, in the month of May 1836, at John F. Beavers’s in said county, a place of public resort.” Farmer and Hodnett appeared at May term 1837, and severally pleaded not guilty to the presentment. Each of them was found guilty by the jury, and the court rendered judgments against them, respectively, for 20 dollars fine, *and the costs of prosecution. After the verdicts were rendered respectively, the defendants moved the court to grant them new trials, on the ground that the evidence did not warrant the convictions; which motions being overruled,' they respectively excepted.
    From the bill of exceptions in Farmer’s case, it appeared that the facts proved at the trial were as follows.
    The playing took place in a barn on the plantation of John F. Beavers, a licensed oidinary keeper, the tavern house being situated on the same plantation, about 200 yards distant from the barn. On the day of the gaming, many people were assembled, for the purpose of mustering; and on that day, liquor was sold by said Beavers in a. barn in a separate enclosure from the tavern house; in the rear of which last mentioned barn, at a distance of between 60 and 70-yards therefrom, in a wheatfield, was situated the barn in which the gaming was carried on, another barn intervening between the one in which spirits were sold and that in which the gaming was carried on. Only two persons were present, besides the four who were playing. It was not proved that the barn was previously resorted to by company, for the purpose of gaming, or for any other purpose. And the court certified that these were all the facts proved in the case.
    The facts stated in the bill of exceptions, in Hodnett’s case, and which were certified to be all the facts proved, were identical with those in Farmer’s case. The bill of exceptions was in nearly the same words as the other, varying only in the statement, that “it was not proved that the barn was in the habit of being resorted to for the purpose of gaming, or any other-purpose.”
    And now Farmer and Hodnett severally applied by petition to this court, for writs, of error to the judgments. The case of Commonwealth v. Sanders, 5 Leigh 751, was cited and relied upon for the petitioners.
    
      
      See monographic note on “Gaming” appended to Neal v. Com., 22 Gratt. 917.
    
   PER CURIAM —

Writs of error denied.