Court Opinion

ID: 9730574
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 15:16:08.357648+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:07.506035
License: Public Domain

Proctor, J.
(concurring). I join in the reinstatement of the trial court’s judgment of conviction. However, as I read this Court’s opinion, a bookmaker would be guilty of but one offense if he, on the same day, engaged in several bookmaking transactions solely on horse races or solely on baseball games. Although in footnote one the majority purports not to decide this question, the foundation stone of the decision is the fact that “two different types of bookmaking” (emphasis added) were present. The Court states:
“We disagree, however,, with the Appellate Division’s further conclusion that where, as here, the violations involved the taking of bets on more than one type of event, a separate count would not lie for each type of conduct.” (Emphasis added).
I fear this language will be read by law enforcement officers and trial judges to mean that the sine qua non for separate counts based on one day of bookmaking is the existence of bookmaking on more than one type of event. I cannot join in such a conclusion.
*237I would sustain the separate counts for baseball bets and horse racing bets not on the Court’s basis that “[t]he defendants engaged in two different types of bookmaking, each of which was proscribed and made punishable by N. J. S. 2A :112-3” but on the ground that the acceptance of each bet was a distinct violation of the statute. This Court has held that a single betting transaction by a bookmaker constitutes a violation of N. J. S. 2A :112-3. State v. Bogen, 13 N. J. 137, 139 (1953), affirming 23 N. J. Super. 531 (App. Div. 1952). Thus, single acts of bookmaking may be the subject of separate counts whether the acts related to bets on different events ox the same event. The Court refers to bookmaking on two different types of events as “separate and distinct offenses.” But separate and distinct offenses would be involved in making a book of several separate and distinct bets, even though the bets were placed on the outcome of the same horse race or, indeed, on the performance of the same horse. Does the Court consider bets on races at Belmont Park and on races at Monmouth Park to be bets on the same type event? Is the racing of trotters the same type event as flat racing? Is a steeplechase the same type event as a six-furlong race? Is a professional football game the same type event as collegiate football? I doubt the Court is prepared to deal with these questions. In my view, a defendant twice would have violated the statute whether on the same day he took a bet on a horse race and another wager on a baseball game, or whether on that day he took two bets on the same event.
I also have difficulty with the limitation to a single day’s activities apparently placed by the Court on bookmaking prosecutions. There is no basis, either in the statute or in the decisions, for what I believe to be an intimation by the Court that a day is the appropriate unit for measuring the number of bookmaking violations. The Court as easily might have chosen a week, an hour, or an afternoon of bookmaking as the smallest interval of crime which could be subject to a single count.
*238Although I would hold that each bookmaking transaction —whether on the same event or different events or on the same or different days — may be the subject of a separate count or indictment, I do not think it would be appropriate for a trial judge to sentence on each transaction separately without reference to the other counts or indictments. I am in agreement that the trial court’s imposition of sentences in this case was proper.
For modification — Chief Justice Weiftbatjb and Justices Jacobs, Eeafcis, Peoctoe, Hall, Schettifo and HafeMAN — -7.
Opposed — None.