United States v. King

20 D.C. 404
CourtDistrict of Columbia Court of Appeals
DecidedFebruary 29, 1892
DocketCriminal No. 18,592
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 20 D.C. 404 (United States v. King) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District of Columbia Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. King, 20 D.C. 404 (D.C. 1892).

Opinion

The Chief Justice

delivered the opinion of the court:

The defendant was tried and convicted in the Police Court upon an information charging him with, between the 6th day of March and the 9th day of July, 1891, unlawfully keeping, setting up and promoting and unlawfully being concerned, in divers manners, in managing a certain policy lottery, and a certain policy shop in the District of Columbia and in violation of the Act of Congress approved April 29, 1878. [20 Stát., p. 39.] The case comes to this court on a writ of error granted under the provisions of the Act of Congress approved March 3, 1891. [26 Stat., p. 849].

Upon the trial of the case a number of exceptions were taken to the rulings of the court, which are assigned as error. On the trial Sigmund J. Block was a witness on behalf of the United States, and he testified that he was an officer of the Metropolitan Police Force; that he had arrested the defendant on the 8th day of July, 1891, when the defendant was riding in a carriage with a man by the name of Baldwin; that the [407]*407witness stopped the carriage and in the bottom found a satchel; that he arrested Baldwin also at the same time; that said Baldwin was driving the carriage at the time of his arrest; that witness took this satchel into a watch house on the bridge and opened it and found a number of papers in the said satchel, being the papers hereto attached as exhibits, and all that were produced at the trial; that he then took defendant and said Baldwin to the station house where he took from the defendant a pocket-book containing $307 in money; that at the station, house the defendant said to witness that Baldwin was a friend of his, who travelled back and forth, and that he, the defendant, was the only party responsible for whatever was in the carriage; that he was an employee and not a backer, and that he would not give the backer away even if he had to serve six months in jail. Thereupon the United States, by its counsel, asked the said witness to state what the said papers were, in his opinion, which he took from the satchel, and thereupon the defendant objected because the papers were not shown to be connected with any policy lottery, and that the witness was not shown to be qualified as an expert to give any opinion as to what the papers were. Thereupon, and in response to inquiries by the court, he testified that his knowledge as an expert was derived solely by being an officer of said police force, and in that capacity collecting evidence in policy cases, and presenting the said cases to the District Attorney, and very frequent conversations had with a number of policy writers who had explained to him their business and their ways of transacting business; that he had thus acquainted himself'with the operations of policy players. Thereupon the court ruled that the witness might state what the said papers were, and in answer to a question which had been propounded by the counsel for the United States, the witness answered “these papers are policy papers of different dates.” Thereupon an exception was taken.

It is urged, first, that the witness did not qualify himself as an expert sufficiently to authorize him to testify. We think that the testimony of Mr. Block shows that he was [408]*408amply qualified to testify as an expert; that his experience, which he states; his familiarity with the modus operamdi of policy playing and the conducting of these lotteries was sufficient to authorize him to speak as an expert upon the subject.

It is further said that he was not authorized to give his opinion, or state what these papers were, until it had been shown that there was a scheme of lottery such as is charged in the information in this case. That wouljl only be at most a question of the order of introducing testimony. The court might permit the testimony to be introduced-, and if there should be a total failure of evidence to prove that an offense had been committed, and that there had been a policy lottery scheme which this defendant had been connected with in some manner as alleged in the information, the court would have been justified in withdrawing the testimony from the jury, but we think it was not a proper exception in view of the record of the case as presented to us at this time.

The second exception was also to testimony of the witness Block. He further stated that the policy papers or books, which were referred to in his previous testimony, represented transactions on the 6th and 7th days of July, 1891, and that ■ only one of them was dated on 7th day of July; that he knew that the said book bore that date because of the figures “77” on the top of it; that one Bowie was the writer of it; that when he got these papers and books from the defendant, the books were dead; that the betting had been determined and the books closed, and that none of them had the year marked on them, and that they were only useful as a record of what had been done. Thereupon the United States, by its counsel, asked the witness: “Do you know by looking at the papers and from the papers whether these papers had passed out of the writer’s hands into the backers?” Thereupon the defendant objected that the said evidence was incompetent and immaterial, and further, that unless the witness could testify of his personal knowledge the evidence was incompetent, and because the papers themselves were the best evidence. The court overruled the objection and the defendant [409]*409excepted. The witness answered: “Yes, I can tell by the hit list, which are on the papers in lead pencil, which can only be made up by the backers.” To this answer an exception was taken. The witness had already qualified himself as an expert, familiar with the scheme and the mode in which it is conducted, and his answer is based upon that knowledge as disclosed in the answer itself, as he does not profess to have seen, the papers pass from the writers to the backers, but from his knowledge of the mode of conducting that business, that knowledge having been previously disclosed, he states: “Yes, I can tell by the hit list, which are on the papers in lead pencil, which can only be made up by the backers.” We think it was perfectly competent for him to testify as to the meaning and purport of what he calls the “hit list” then and there found upon these papers, in the possession of the defendant. There was no error in the admission of this testimony.

When the evidence was concluded a number of prayers were presented by counsel for the defendant to the court for the jury and to the refusal to give some of them, and to the giving of some of them in a modified form the counsel for the defendant excepted.

The first prayer is as follows: ‘ ‘ The fact that the defendant had in his possession at the time of his arrest certain papers called policy books, or any other paraphernalia appertaining to policy lottery that had been previous to the day of his arrest used and were then of no value is not of itself sufficient to-warrant a conviction.” Whereupon the court said: “The first prayer is granted with this qualification: It is for the j ury to say what connection, if any, this defendant had with the scheme of policy lottery, and what, if any, value the papers had.

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Bluebook (online)
20 D.C. 404, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-king-dc-1892.