The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1906-05-05
ENCOURAGING
TO CHE-FA
PLAYERS.
Continued from Page ID

one OF the lottery messengers. On his
person were seized hit Slips papers
showing the winners in the lottery, and
money to pay the winnings of the
Cincinnati investors.
Justice Peckham delivered the opin-
appeal. It was held that the slips re-
ferred to past drawing and did not
purport to be for a lottery yet to take
place, therefore that the appellant had
not been lawfully convicted of the Of
tense charged.
In view of the France decision it
would have been useless to proceed
with those cases, where we had abso-
lutely no evidence of the existence of
a che-fa bank, or a lottery to take
place in which the seized tickets We're
to have been used.'' County Attorney
Douthitt said.
Il had a talk about nol-prossing the
cases beforehand with Judge De Bolt.
and he asked me why L did not mol
stead of numbering up the calendar
with those cases, should nol-pros
them and begin afresh.''
Mr. Douthitt acted accordingly and
had the calendar cleared of the che
ia dead wood cases, as he called
them in court. With the law as stated,
it is incumbent on the authorities to
ferret out the che-fa banks and bank
ers, proving their connection with
drawings to come and tickets therefor,
before securing the conviction of ticket
rosse ssors--which includes the runners
for che-fa banks as the ones chiefly
TO be- pursued next to the bankers
themselves. This, the County Attorney
admitted yesterday, is very hard
thing to accomplish.
THE DIRECTED VERDICT.
With regard to Judge De Bolts
direction to a jury on Wednesday to
return a verdict of acquittal for Ia
kai, charged with assisting in main
tanning a lottery, the prosecuting Off
GERS of both the Territory and the
County hold it to have been a very
close decision in favor of the gamblers.
They have a strong opinion, indeed,
the Hawaiian Supreme Court. Judge
De Bolt, however. held in his ruling on
the motion for a directed verdict that
the Kaka decision was not applicable.
Perhaps the public may form some
judgment as to whether the judge or
the prosecutors are right, from the
of the Takai case and
the law as laid down in the Kaka de-
cision
Il selected in that Takai case" Mr..
Douthitt said yesterday, the very
sisting in maintaining lottery. for
the purpose of finding out what the
judge would do under the circum-
stances. | had been Informed that mo-
lions for directed verdicts would be
made all along the line of similar
cases.
AT the trial I put in every particle
of evidence which 1 had at my COM
mand. There was a ticket bought for
forty cents, sworn by d witness to have
been a ticket for lottery game. !
When Takai was arrested he was
caught in the very act of putting
down memoranda Of sales of tickets. !
A complete che-fa agents parapherna
liza was found in his possession.
In opposition to the motion for a |
directed verdict of acquittal, ] argued
that the question should be left to
the jury, on the evidence, whether or
not the defendant was assisting to
maintain a che-fa bank actually in |
existence at the time of his arrest.
IF there was no bank in existence. |
according to the evidence presented. |
then let a case of gross cheat be made !
out against Takai. as suggested by the
Supreme Court in the Kaka decision.
Judge De Bolt replied that gross
cheat was not charged and ruled. as
already published. that the actual ex-
stence of bank not having been
proved the defendant was entitled to
lcquittal
In the face of this ruling I entered |
L nolle prosequi for the next case of
in maintaining a lottery