## Facts

- R. J. Lawrence attended a baseball game in Bryan County, Oklahoma.
- While at the game, Lawrence bet five dollars with Jake Sims on the outcome.
- The bet was made publicly and openly, in the presence of an assembled crowd that included men, women, boys, and girls.
- The State charged Lawrence by information under Okla. Comp. Laws 1909 § 2782, a misdemeanor statute covering any willful and wrongful act that (among other results) grossly disturbs the public peace or health, openly outrages public decency, and is injurious to public morals, when no other punishment is expressly provided.
- Lawrence demurred to the information, arguing (1) § 2782 was void for uncertainty and (2) the information was defective for duplicity.
- The county court sustained the demurrer and discharged Lawrence.
- The State appealed to the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals.

## Issues

1. Is Okla. Comp. Laws 1909 § 2782 void for uncertainty because it allegedly fails to give adequate notice of what conduct is criminal?
2. Is the information fatally duplicitous for alleging that the single act of publicly betting both disturbed the public peace, outraged public decency, and injured public morals?
3. Do public and open bets on a baseball game, made before a mixed crowd, fall within § 2782?

## Decision

- The Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the order sustaining the demurrer and discharging the defendant, and remanded for further proceedings.
- The court held § 2782 was valid and not void for uncertainty.
- The court held the information charged a single offense and was not duplicitous.
- The court held that publicly and openly betting on a baseball game, in the presence of men, women, and children as alleged, stated an offense under § 2782.

## Legal Principles

- The Legislature defines crimes; courts determine whether charged conduct falls within a statute’s general language.
- A criminal statute may define an offense by describing harmful results (such as disturbing public peace or outraging public decency), and it is not invalid for uncertainty if its terms supply a workable standard when applied to willful and wrongful conduct.
- When a legislature creates, without defining, an offense that was a crime at common law, courts may treat the common-law definition as part of the statute to make the prohibition definite.
- Gaming was an offense at common law; a wager on the result of a contest of chance, skill, or strength constitutes gaming.
- Courts may take judicial notice that baseball, when properly conducted, is an innocent public amusement; however, public and open betting at such an event, before a mixed audience, may be treated as conduct that openly outrages public decency and is injurious to public morals within § 2782.
- An information is not duplicitous merely because it tracks multiple statutory descriptions of the harmful effects of one act; duplicity requires charging more than one distinct offense in a single count.

## Conclusion

State v. Lawrence held that Okla. Comp. Laws 1909 § 2782 was sufficiently definite to support criminal prosecution, that an information alleging a single act may plead multiple statutory characterizations of harm without being duplicitous, and that openly wagering $5 on a baseball game in front of men, women, and children could be prosecuted under § 2782; the trial court’s dismissal was reversed and the case remanded.


State v. Lawrence, 130 P. 508 (1913)