Gatewood v. State

Hammond, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellant, following a party which got a bit rough, was arrested on a charge of assault on a warrant sworn out by his lady friend. The police removed from his wallet two slips of paper which they recognized as part of a lottery operation. He was indicted for violation of the lottery laws and the Criminal Court of Baltimore, sitting without a jury, found him guilty.

He is appealing from the judgment and sentence which followed. The appellant urges that the trial court erred when Sergeant McKay, an expert witness for the State, was allowed to testify as to the significance of each of the slips of paper before the slips had been offered in evidence. It is conceded that both papers were found on the appellant after a legal arrest and that Sgt. McKay is a well qualified expert witness.

He testified that one of the papers, the yellow slip, contained three lottery numbers. On the paper Were the numerals “1200”. Following this were the numbers 454-2, 455-2 and 200-50, which he considered to be lottery numbers indicating $4.50 in play, 454, 455 and 200 being the numbers played. He said that the $4.50 was to be added to the $12.00, which he took the figure “1200” to mean, showing a total of $16.50 due from a man named Criner, whose name appeared at the bottom of the slip.

He summarized his testimony as follows: “* * * in my opinion Criner played $4.50 in numbers with the defendant on that day, and hé already owed him $12.00, which makes him owe the defendant now $16.50.” All of this testimony came in without objection. The yellow slip was then offered in evidence and was objected to. The court did not then rule on the objection. Sgt.

McKay continued his testimony without objection, saying that the second piece of paper, which had been taken from appellant’s billfold, was an adding machine' tape contáining “Cut numbers, cut lottery numbers.”' He explained these to be numbers which appear to hit more often than others so that the odds ³⁷⁷ are made smaller on those numbers than on others which are paid off at the usual rate of 7-1 or 8-1, and they are usually called cut numbers. The tape contained a column of numerals and to the left of each appeared the notations 5-1, 4-1, and so forth. At the top of the tape appeared in pencil 8-1, which the witness said was the normal payoff of that particular operation. When asked the direct question of whether the tape was a lottery record, the Sergeant answered that in his opinion, it was.

To the question as to what position in the lottery heirarchy that type of slip would indicate the holder to occupy, there was an objection which was sustained. After some further inconsequential testimony, the adding machine tape was offered in evidence, and objected to. The court then admitted both the yellow slip and the adding machine tape in evidence. The appellant now argues earnestly that he was preju diced by the testimony of the Sergeant before the exhibits were put in evidence and, indeed, by the action of the court in allowing such testimony to come in at any