The S.C. Supreme Court struck a blow against illegal gambling this week when it upheld 2006 convictions of five people who were arrested for the supposedly serious crime of playing penny ante poker in a private home in Mt. Pleasant.

Even better, the convictions were based on an 1802 law that a majority of the judges considered flawed and outdated.

Do 1802 laws still count in South Carolina? That’s 58 years before the state seceded from the Union and joined in armed rebellion against the federal government. That losing effort had to void something.