Court Opinion

ID: 9811525
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 22:23:27.870565+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:15:51.682655
License: Public Domain

Clark, O. J.,
concurring: The amounts involved in this case are very small, but the principle is that of a lottery, and, if admissible, can be used in larger enterprises. It is true that the number who can receive a prize is fixed at one in twenty, but the element of chance is as to who shall be the twentieth man.
In the Texan War for Independence against Mexico some 250 Texans (10 of them from this State) surrendered as prisoners of war at Mier, *779and were marched off into the interior. At Salado, 25 March, 184-3, they were marched by an urn which contained a black bean for every nine white, and those who drew black beans were drawn up in line and instantly shot by a firing squad. Thomas J. Green’s “Mier Expedition,” 170. In this “Lottery of Death” the number doomed was definite, one in ten, but the chance as to who should be the tenth man was a gamble with death. The principle that selects by chance one in twenty for a prize is exactly the same that selects one man in ten for instant death. There is no uncertainty as to the percentage who shall draw the black bean or the prize. The gamble is in designating, by chance, the persons.