Case Title: HIGDON v. State

Citation: 173 N.E.2d 58, 241 Ind. 501

Docket Number: 29,943

State: indiana

Court: Indiana Supreme Court

Date: 1961-03-27T00:00:00Z

Document:
241 Ind. 501 (1961)
173 N.E.2d 58
HIGDON ET AL.
v.
STATE OF INDIANA.
No. 29,943.

Supreme Court of Indiana.
Filed March 27, 1961.
Thomas A. Cannon and Perry W. Cross, both of Muncie, for appellants.
Edwin K. Steers, Attorney General, Richard M. Givan, Assistant Attorney General, and Richard C. Johnson, Deputy Attorney General, for appellee.
JACKSON, J.
The appellants were charged by affidavit with possession and owning a gambling device. The sufficiency of the affidavit was tested by motion to quash, the motion to quash was, by the court, overruled. Appellants were arraigned, pleaded not guilty, were thereafter tried and convicted by jury. The defendant, Frank H. Higdon, was fined the sum of Five Hundred Dollars and costs, and sentenced to Indiana State Farm for a period of ninety (90) days; the defendants, *502 Byron Z. Landon and Lloyd V. Stephenson, Jr., were each fined in the sum of Two Hundred Dollars and costs. Following their conviction appellants filed their motion for a new trial, the motion for a new trial being overruled, appellants perfected their appeal to this court.
The affidavit for "Possession and Owning Gambling Device," omitting formal parts thereof, signature and jurat reads as follows:
The statute on which the affidavit was based reads as follows, to-wit:
*503 The definition section of said Act, as amended, as applied to the section thereof under which this prosecution was instituted reads as follows:
Appellants "Motion to Quash Affidavit" omitting the formal parts thereof reads as follows:
Appellants "Motion for New Trial," omitting the formal parts thereof, reads as follows:
Appellants Assignment of Error is on the single ground as follows:
The determinative question here involved is whether or not the so called "tip book" is a gambling device within the purview of the statute § 10-2332, Burns' 1956 Replacement, supra, under which this prosecution was instituted, and if so, whether the affidavit sufficiently *505 charges the offense to withstand the motion to quash.
Our courts have consistently held that criminal statutes must be strictly construed, and that any doubts must be resolved in favor of the accused. Kistler v. State (1921), 190 Ind. 149, 129 N.E. 625; Kelley v. State (1933), 204 Ind. 612, 630, 185 N.E. 453; Shutt v. State (1954), 233 Ind. 120, 125, 117 N.E.2d 268.
Another fundamental concept of criminal jurisprudence in this state is that a crime is defined and punishment fixed only by act of the legislature.
The following language was used by the Indiana Supreme Court almost one hundred years ago, to-wit:
That doctrine has recently been reaffirmed when this court said:
*506 The affidavit, charging the appellants in part, reads as follows:
The definition section of the Act defining the alleged crime, in part, reads as follows:
This court has consistently held that the legislature has the power to define language used in a statute, and that the courts are bound by such construction. Smith v. The State (1867), 28 Ind. 321, 325; Fahnestock v. The State (1885), 102 Ind. 156, 162, 163, 1 N.E. 372; Gross Income Tax Division v. L.S. Ayres & Co. (1954), 233 Ind. 194, 198, 118 N.E.2d 480.
In the case at bar, the legislature did not intend to give a broad definition to the term "gambling device," but in fact sought to restrict its meaning by specifically defining it as a "mechanism." This court can not give a broader construction to the language of the statute than that intended by the legislature. Even though a tip book would be a gambling device in the absence of such statutory definition, the legislative definition excludes a tip book from the operation of the statute.
The motion for a new trial should have been sustained, this cause is reversed and remanded to the trial court with instructions to sustain the motion to quash *507 the affidavit, and for further proceedings not inconsistent with this opinion.
Arterburn, J., concurs.
Bobbitt, C.J., and Landis, J., concur in result.
Achor, J., concurs in result with opinion.
ACHOR, J.
I concur in the result of the majority opinion, as written by Jackson, J., insofar as it holds that the motion for new trial should have been sustained. However, in my opinion, the error of the trial court consisted in the overruling of the motion for new trial on the ground that the verdict was not sustained by sufficient evidence, and not on the ground that the court erred in overruling the motion to quash.
NOTE.  Reported in 173 N.E.2d 58.