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Republic of the Philippines
SUPREME COURT
Manila

EN BANC

G.R. No. 1645            April 4, 1904

THE UNITED STATES, complainant-appellee,
vs.
HUGO REYES, ET AL., defendants-appellants.

J. F. Oliveros for appellants.
Office of the Solicitor-General Araneta for appellee.

COOPER, J.:

The defendants, Hugo Reyes, Gonzales Blas, Fausto Satorre, Teodorico Bautista, Pascual Galan, and Crispulo Mendoza, were charged with the offense of playing a prohibited game, to wit, the game of monte. The defendant Hugo Reyes was convicted by the Court of First Instance and sentenced to imprisonment for one month and one day and to pay a fine of 625 pesetas. The other defendant were acquitted.

It is neither charged in the complaint nor is it shown by the evidence that the house in which the defendants were found playing monte was a house used for the purpose of gambling. The supreme court of Spain, by a decision on the 28th day of December, 1887, held in construing this article of the Penal Code that the playing must occur in a house used for the purpose of gambling, whether it be public or private; but if it happened that the playing had taken place by mere accident in such place, the persons engaged in playing the prohibited game are not guilty of the offense defined and made punishable in article 343.

This court has concurred in the construction given to article 343 by the supreme court of Spain in a decision which has not yet been published, and, on the authority of these cases, the judgment of the Court of First Instance must be reversed and the defendant acquitted, with the costs de oficio, which is accordingly done.

Arellano, C.J., Torres, Willard, Mapa, McDonough and Johnson, JJ., concur.

The Lawphil Project - Arellano Law Foundation

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