South Carolina Criminal Defense Blog

Next month a Municipal judge in Charleston, S.C. is to decide whether playing Texas hold 'em poker is a crime in our state. Of course, if the judge decides that it is, a jury will then decide and, if the jury decides that it is, our appellate courts get a shot at it.

Each week for nearly 30 years, Bob Chimento and his college buddies have gathered around tables in a Mount Pleasant home to play the popular version of poker known as Texas Hold 'em, bringing $20 and spending an evening with pizza, sodas and beer.

As the cards flew during a night in April 2006, a half-dozen police officers burst into the home, seizing several thousand dollars in cash and a small amount of marijuana. They ticketed Chimento and about 20 other players for breaking the conservative state's 200-year-old prohibition on games of chance.

Most of the poker players pleaded guilty and paid a $250 fine but Chimento and four others are challenging what they say is an antiquated law -- poker, after all, is seen almost nightly on TV and is played around thousands of kitchen tables around the country. Even President Barack Obama is one of the estimated 55 million Americans who are fond of the game. . . .

Read literally, a South Carolina law established in 1802 makes ''any game with cards or dice'' -- including popular board games such as Monopoly and Sorry -- illegal in the state.

But Attorney General Henry McMaster says his office has adopted a looser interpretation of that statute, one that only considers games more reliant on chance than on a player's skill to be gambling and therefore illegal -- an interpretation the top prosecutor says includes Texas Hold 'em.

''This office, over many years, interpreted that as a gambling game,'' McMaster said recently. ''This is our law, and the people of our state, speaking through their elected representatives, have made this the law.''

You have got to be kidding me . . . cops raiding poker games? I can understand if a major drug dealer is hosting a poker game at his house, but I would hope that police are not taking time and resources to conduct raids on run-of-the-mill poker games. Who makes the decision that a poker game is a worthy target and use of resources? What motivates that decision?

Apparently, in this instance, cops used an informant wired for sound and marked bills to help make their case.

Chimento says the men paid a $20 buy-in each to go toward pizza, beer and soft drinks for the group. The ''house'' didn't take a cut of the money involved in each poker hand.

Police said the gathering was not merely a friendly game but an encounter that had been advertised online. They used an informant, armed with $100 in marked bills and recording devices, to gather information.

Could it be that this is the same poker game that First Circuit Deputy Solicitor Don Sorenson was found at in April of 2006? Are police raiding poker games or are police raiding poker games where Deputy Solicitors can be found? I am curious. If anyone can name another instance of a poker-game-raid in South Carolina, let me know. Bonus points if there was a prosecutor playing at the table.

H/T to the Law and Magic Blog.