Blodgett v. Clarke
| Decision Date | 28 September 1916 |
| Docket Number | 31377 |
| Citation | 159 N.W. 243,177 Iowa 575 |
| Parties | D. T. BLODGETT, Appellant, v. GEORGE W. CLARKE et al., Appellees |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
REHEARING DENIED SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1916.
Appeal from Polk District Court.--HUBERT UTTERBACK, Judge.
THE plaintiff alleged in his petition that the defendants constituted the executive council, W. S. Allen being secretary of state; that, at the primary election on June 5 1916, the electors voted to nominate four candidates for the office of judge of the Supreme Court; that the returns disclosed that the plaintiff received 14 votes more than any person voted for as candidate, other than H. E. Deemer, W. D Evans and Wm. Theophilus; that, on July 13, 1916, plaintiff demanded in writing that the executive council certify to the number of votes received by plaintiff for said office, and that a certificate of nomination be issued by the secretary of state to the plaintiff as one of the candidates duly nominated; that the defendants refused said certificates, and he prayed that a peremptory order of mandamus be issued commanding defendants to determine forthwith what person was selected as the fourth candidate, and to issue him a certificate of nomination accordingly. By way of amendment to the petition, the plaintiff alleged that he is a qualified elector and has never been convicted of an infamous crime but that, by virtue of a void judgment, returned by the court without jurisdiction, plaintiff was illegally imprisoned in the penitentiary of Iowa for 3 years and 9 months, thereby serving an unlawful sentence of 5 years.
"That plaintiff was tried and acquitted upon an indictment charging him 'with intent to defraud' by one certain use of one certain written instrument; that thereafter the same act of his mind (his one intention) was again charged to have been an 'intent to defraud,' and, by the fraudulent act of the presiding judge at the second trial of the one question of intent (the only question of fact litigated in both trials) the second jury was deceived by being deprived of an opportunity to examine certain letters that the honorable district court judge, William D. Evans, as presiding judge when plaintiff was acquitted, had decided to be competent, relevant and material evidence upon the question of intent, and the jury rendered a verdict of guilty, in accordance with the partial evidence by which they were by the oaths bound to be controlled; that the making of the written instrument and the uttering of it were each done by the plaintiff with the sole intention to use the written instrument as it was used, and which use was, by the first jury, legally and finally determined to have been a legal use of it; that the making and use of the written instrument was one inseparable, indivisible transaction, determined, by the first jury, to have been no crime; that the court did not have jurisdiction to try the same question of fact after the former acquittal, and the Honorable S. M. Weaver so decided in State v. Blodgett."
The defendants demurred to the petition as amended, on several grounds, among them that he (plaintiff) did not become a candidate at the primary election, as exacted by the Code and that he was ineligible to the office, because of...
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An Infamous Case: How the Iowa Supreme Court's Minimalist Approach Forced Everyone to Come Back for More in Chiodo v. Section 43.24 Panel, 846 N.w.2d 845 (iowa 2014)
...49. Chiodo, 846 N.W.2d at 849 (plurality opinion). 50. See State ex rel. Dean v. Haubrich, 83 N.W.2d 451 (Iowa 1957); Blodgett v. Clarke, 159 N.W. 243 (Iowa 1916) (per curiam); Flannagan v. Jepson, 158 N.W. 641 (Iowa 51. Chiodo, 846 N.W.2d at 849 (plurality opinion). 52. Id. at 851. 53. Id.......