Noll v State

Noll v State
1913 OK CR 273
135 P. 287
10 Okl.Cr. 157
Case Number: No. A-1978
Decided: 10/07/1913
Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals

GAMING Opening and Maintaining Game Statutes Elements of Offense.

Appeal from County Court, Pottawatomie County; Hal Johnson, Judge.

Page 158

Chas. Noll was convicted of conducting games of craps and roulette, and he appeals. Reversed.

Pitman & Goode, for plaintiff in error.

Smith C. Matson, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

PER CURIAM. The plaintiff in error, Chas. Noll, was convicted at the January, 1913, term of the county court of Pottawatomie county on a charge of conducting games of craps and roulette. The Attorney General has filed a confession of error in this cause, and advises the court in his judgment the conviction should be reversed. In part the confession is as follows:

"This information charges the defendant with having on the 16th day of January, 1913, unlawfully opened, and with having unlawfully conducted as owner, a game of craps played with dice for money and a game of roulette played with table, wheel, and ball for money. We have carefully examined the transcript of the testimony of the witnesses McColghan and Durham, who were the sole witnesses giving testimony in this case, and have failed to find where either of them have testified directly to any facts or circumstances that prove that this defendant on the day charged, or on any other day, opened up a game of craps that was played for money; nor does the evidence prove that any game, either roulette or craps, was played by anybody at any time in his place of business for money, checks, or other representatives of value. In our opinion, this proof was absolutely necessary to sustain a conviction on this information."