Court Opinion

ID: 9728015
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:55:22.739665+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:44.184785
License: Public Domain

O’Sullivan, J.
(dissenting). The information charged the defendant with a violation of § 8675 of the General Statutes in that on January 12, 1953, at Bridgeport, he engaged in the sale or exchange of policy slips or tickets, for the purpose of wagers and gambling. On its face this stated a good charge. The flaw in the court’s judgment, however, is that, regardless of what other violations of the statute the defendant may have committed, the state did not establish the one of which it sought to prove him guilty.
Section 86751 is captioned “Policy playing; gaming *571by use of lottery slips or tickets.” The statute is lengthy and replete with prohibitions. Of these, the state’s attorney selected the one incorporated in the information. Although he could have added any others which he believed the defendant had transgressed, he failed to do so. He did not, for example, charge the defendant with owning or maintaining a policy office, as he might have done, or with taking part in any way in betting or wagering. The state’s *572attorney limited Ms accusation to a violation of that provision of the statute which prohibits the sale or exchange of policy slips or tickets in order to promote wagers and gambling. The defendant had the constitutional right to assume that the information set forth the exact charge for which he was to be tried and upon which he was ultimately to be convicted or discharged. Conn. Const. Art. I § 9; U.S. Const. Amend. VI. NotMng is more elementary in criminal law than that an accused is required to defend only against the charge alleged. State v. Scott, 80 Conn. 317, 321, 68 A. 258; see State v. DiLorenzo, 138 Conn. 281, 284, 83 A.2d 479.
An essential element of the crime, then, which the state had to establish beyond a reasonable doubt, if a legal conviction was to follow, was the sale or exchange of policy slips or tickets on the part of the defendant. At the time of the search of the defendant’s home, the police found, near a telephone, several large sheets of paper upon each of which was recorded a long list of wagers. Calling an elephant a giraffe will not make it one, and calling these sheets of paper policy slips or tickets, as the state’s attorney insists on doing, is merely indulging in an attempt at semantic legerdemain and is futile as a method of altering what the sheets actually are, namely, records of bets, and, in all probability, bets taken over the telephone. But the state’s attorney finds it essential to maintain the position he has taken. He conceded, during oral argument, that unless the sheets were policy slips or tickets his ease against the defendant would collapse, since there was no proof, direct or by inference, of the existence of any other slips or tickets or of their sale or exchange.
My colleagues escape from this dilemma by observing that the defendant admitted to the police his *573ownership of the sheets of paper found in his home and “identified as policy slips.” “This fact,” they continue, “together with the further fact that these slips were actually records of bets obviously taken by the defendant’s wife over the telephone . . . justified an inference that the defendant, acting through his runners, had been engaged in selling policy slips or their equivalent to others.” This is a good example of blowing hot and cold. As was pointed out by the state’s attorney, the state relied exclusively on the fact that the sheets of paper were the only proven slips or tickets. But, as is noted above, the sheets could not have been what the state’s attorney wished them to be, since they consisted only of lists of bets.
Because of this, my colleagues have gone far afield, it seems to me, and, indeed, contrary to the conceded state of the evidence, by interjecting into the opinion the statement that the defendant, “acting through his runners, had been engaged in selling policy slips or their equivalent to others.” Just what the majority mean by the words “their equivalent” is left obscure. The statute certainly makes no reference to them. But that aside, there is not a scrap of evidence on the part of anyone that the defendant had “runners” or that either he or they sold or exchanged slips or tickets. I find myself in complete discord with the opinion and the basis upon which the conviction is sustained. As I view the case, it is far more important to preserve the requirements of proof required in criminal matters than to hold this particular defendant guilty upon the evidence presented in this record. See State v. Skinner, 132 Conn. 163, 168, 43 A.2d 76.

"See. 8675. policy playing; gaming by use op lottery slips or tickets. Any person, whether a principal, agent or servant, who *571shall own, possess, keep, manage or maintain, or who shall assist in keeping, managing or maintaining any policy-office or place where the game of chance, business, scheme or occupation, commonly known as policy, is, or is reputed to be, played or carried on, or any place where bets or wagers are, or are reputed to be, made upon the result of a drawing in any lottery, or of the drawing of any numbers by chance, or any place which is, or is reputed to be, resorted to for any such purposes in whole or in part, or shall write, sell, bargain, exchange, give, transfer, deliver, buy, collect or receive, or be concerned in writing, selling, bargaining, exchanging, giving, transferring, delivering or receiving, any policy slips, tickets, tokens, numbers or chances, used in said game of chance, business, scheme or occupation, or in wagering or betting upon the result of any drawing in any lottery, or in any drawing of any numbers by chance, or shall collect or receive, or be concerned in receiving or collecting any money or other valuable thing for any such slips, tokens, numbers or chances, or shall play or take part in any way in such game of chance, business, scheme, occupation, betting or wagering, in or out of any such office or place, or shall frequent any place or office where the game of chance, business, scheme or occupation, commonly known as policy, is, or is reputed to be, played or carried on in whole or in part, or any place where wagers or bets are, or are reputed to bo, made upon the result of any drawing in any lottery, or of any drawing of any numbers by chance, or shall frequent any place which is, or is reputed to be, resorted to for any of sueh purposes in whole or in part, or shall make, manufacture or keep, or be the custodian of, any slips, tokens, papers, books, records or registers of bets or wagers, or any appliances or apparatus used for any sueh purposes, shall be fined not more than one hundred dollars or imprisoned not more than six months or both. Any owner, mortgagee in possession, lessee or occupant of any building, room, structure or place, or part thereof, who shall knowingly permit the same to he used or occupied for any of the purposes mentioned in this section, shall be fined not more than one hundred dollars or imprisoned not more than six months or both.”