State v. Chamberlin
| Decision Date | 25 June 1917 |
| Docket Number | 31654 |
| Citation | 163 N.W. 428,180 Iowa 685 |
| Parties | STATE OF IOWA, Appellee, v. A. W. CHAMBERLIN, Appellant |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Appeal from Hamilton District Court.--H. E. FRY, Judge.
DEFENDANT was convicted of the offense of maintaining a liquor nuisance. From a judgment assessing a fine of $ 700, he appeals.
Affirmed.
J. W Lee and G. D. Thompson, for appellant.
H. M Havner, Attorney General, H. H. Carter, Assistant Attorney General, and John E. Burnstedt, for appellee.
The defendant was convicted of the crime of maintaining a liquor nuisance. The evidence showed that he was a physician who had been for many years engaged in the practice of his profession in Hamilton County.
It appears from the evidence that, on the 22d day of December, 1915, the sheriff and his deputy went to the defendant's place of business with a search warrant, for the purpose of searching the premises for intoxicating liquor. The defendant made no objection to a search by the officers. A box containing 50 pint bottles, and some other vessels containing liquor, were found back of the prescription case and removed by the officers. The defendant at the time stated that the bottles contained brandy.
Numerous witnesses testified to having on various occasions purchased liquor of the defendant at the place of the seizure of the liquors.
Many objections were urged by appellant to the introduction of the State's testimony, and some exceptions taken to the court's instructions. The defendant was convicted by the jury, and the court assessed a fine against him for $ 700, for which amount judgment was entered.
I. Defendant was not held to answer and did not have an opportunity to challenge the grand jury. A motion was filed by him to quash the indictment upon the ground that one of the grand jurors returning the indictment was not a citizen of the United States. The motion was overruled by the court and proper exceptions taken to this ruling.
It is urged on behalf of appellee that his objection to the competency of the grand juror could not be raised after the indictment was returned, but, in view of our conclusion that the evidence was insufficient to show that the grand juror was not a qualified elector, it is unnecessary to pass upon this question. The motion to quash the indictment was accompanied by an affidavit signed by the defendant, which recited that John McCarley, the member of the grand jury referred to, was born in Ireland and had never been naturalized and was not a citizen of the United States. Upon being cross-examined, defendant stated that he had no personal knowledge of the matter, and the matters set out in the affidavit were all hearsay.
Another witness called on behalf of the defendant testified that he was present in court when the said John McCarley was called as a witness on the hearing of an application for naturalization, and that his testimony was rejected on the ground that it did not satisfactorily appear that he had been naturalized. The defendant also called the said McCarley as a witness, who testified that he was born in Ireland in 1872 and that he came to this country when 10 years of age; that he understood his father took out naturalization papers in 1884 at Joliet, Illinois; that, at the time, his father was working in the roller mills at that place, and that he remembered his father's going down town to take out his second papers; that all of the Scotch and Irish in the neighborhood were anxious to see Blaine elected president, and that his father took out his second papers in order that he might vote for Blaine.
The grand juror had always supposed that he was a citizen and voter. There is no question that, if his father became naturalized in 1884, the grand juror was also naturalized at the time the indictment was returned. The evidence is wholly insufficient to show that his father was not naturalized at the time referred to. So far as the record in this case shows, his naturalization papers were issued in 1884, as claimed by the grand juror, and proper record made thereof. The only testimony relating to the absence of such record was hearsay and incompetent.
The evidence relied upon to overcome the presumption of citizenship that arises from the party's having voted, held office, or otherwise performed the functions and exercised the rights of citizenship, must be clear and satisfactory. Torre v. Jeannin, (Miss.) 25 So. 860.
The burden was on defendant to show that the grand juror was not a qualified elector. State v. Haynes, 54 Iowa 109, 6 N.W. 156; Keenan v. State, 8 Wis. 132; Moore v. Wilson's Administrators, 10 Yer. (Tenn.) 406.
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