State v. Dunn
| Citation | 202 Iowa 1188,211 N.W. 850 |
| Decision Date | 11 January 1927 |
| Docket Number | No. 37276.,37276. |
| Parties | STATE v. DUNN. |
| Court | United States State Supreme Court of Iowa |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from District Court, Marshall County; James W. Willett, Judge.
The defendant was charged by indictment with a violation of section 5080 of the Code. Upon a trial he was found guilty, and, from a judgment imposing a fine of $500, he appeals. Reversed and remanded.F. E. Northup, of Marshalltown, for appellant.
Ben J. Gibson, Atty. Gen., Neill Garrett, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Roy L. Pell, Co. Atty., of Marshalltown, for the State.
The appellant was charged by indictment with a violation of section 5080 of the Code. That section, so far as here material, is as follows:
“No person shall * * * possess a motor vehicle, the serial or engine number of which is defaced, altered, or tampered with.”
Section 5081 provides punishment by imprisonment or the imposition of a fine for a violation of the preceding section.
[1][2] I. By requested instructions, which were refused, and by exceptions to the instructions given to the jury, the question is presented whether knowledge on the part of one in possession of a motor vehicle of the fact that the engine number thereof has been altered, defaced, or tampered with is an essential element of the crime defined by the statute.
[3][4] It is quite universally recognized at this day that the Legislature may forbid the doing of an act and make its commission a crime without regard to the intent or knowledge of the doer. Whether a criminal intent or guilty knowledge is an essential element of a statutory offense is to be determined as a matter of construction from the language of the act, in connection with its manifest purpose and design. Shevlin–Carpenter Co. v. Minnesota, 218 U. S. 57, 30 S. Ct. 663, 54 L. Ed. 930;United States v. Balint, 258 U. S. 250, 42 S. Ct. 301, 66 L. Ed. 604;Brown v. State, 7 Pennewill (Del.) 159, 74 A. 836, 25 L. R. A. (N. S.) 661;Commonwealth v. Mixer, 207 Mass. 141, 93 N. E. 249, 31 L. R. A. (N. S.) 467, 20 Ann. Cas. 1152;People v. West, 106 N. Y. 293, 12 N. E. 610, 60 Am. Rep. 452;State v. Hennessy, 114 Wash. 351, 195 P. 211;Knecht v. Kenyon, 179 Wis. 523, 192 N. W. 82;Wess v. Packing Co., 43 S. D. 467, 180 N. W. 510;State v. Lindsey, 26 N. M. 526, 194 P. 877;State v. Laundy, 103 Or. 443, 204 P. 958, 206 P. 290;State v. Sterrett, 35 Idaho, 580, 207 P. 1071;State v. Johnson, 115 Mo. 480, 22 S. W. 463;Landen v. United States (C. C. A.) 299 F. 75. See, also, Corpus Juris, 76, and 8 R. C. L. 62.
We have repeatedly recognized and applied the primary doctrine. Jamison v. Burton, 43 Iowa, 282;State v. Newton, 44 Iowa, 45;State v. Probasco, 62 Iowa, 400, 17 N. W. 607;State v. Thompson, 74 Iowa, 119, 37 N. W. 104;State v. Carmean, 126 Iowa, 291, 102 N. W. 97, 106 Am. St. Rep. 352.
With our streets and highways thronged with swiftly moving vehicles, many of which are in the most minute respects the same in construction and appearance, the necessity of providing a certain means of identification of one from the other and of ascertaining certainly their ownership is a matter that concerns not only the protection of the individual owner in the enjoyment of his property, but the rights of the general public as well in the necessary association of such means of transportation with all the varied activities of our daily life.
The state has established an elaborate system for the registering of motor vehicles and the transfer of their ownership. These provisions will be found in chapter 251 of the Code. These measures are designed not merely for the protection of the owner whose property has been stolen by affording a means of identifying it. They afford protection for the public revenues derived from the license fee imposed on such vehicles, are of material aid in the enforcement of laws and ordinances regulating their use, and are for the benefit of the general public in its daily contact with this essentially modern and widespread method of transport. In these latter aspects, at least, the statutes in question are clearly an exercise of the police power. All authorities agree that, in the exercise of that power and in the interest of the public welfare, acts otherwise innocent may be declared to be criminal, and “that he who shall do them shall do them at his peril and will not be heard to plead in defense good faith, or ignorance.” United States v. Balint, supra.
By section 4898 it is made unlawful for any person to buy or sell any secondhand motor vehicle without receiving or furnishing a certificate of registration and transfer from the officer whose duty it is to register such vehicles.
Section 5083 is as follows:
“Under a charge of possessing a motor vehicle, the serial or engine number of which is defaced, altered, or tampered with, it shall be a complete defense that the accused at the time of such possession had in his possession a certificate of registration and transfer from the officer whose duty it is to register or license motor vehicles in the state in which said motor vehicle is registered, showing good and sufficient reason why numbers are defaced, changed, or tampered with, the original serial or engine number, and the ownership of said motor vehicle.”
The statute does not, by its terms, make knowledge on the part of the accused that the number on a car in his possession has been altered, defaced, or tampered with an essential element of the offense. When we consider the statute in connection with the provisions for the registration and transfer of motor vehicles and in the light of its evident purpose, it would seem plain that it was not the intent of the Legislature to make knowledge on the part of one in possession of the vehicle that the numbers had been altered or defaced an essential element of guilt, but rather to put upon him the burden of knowing at his peril that such is not the fact, or, in case there has been such an alteration, of procuring the certificate provided for in section 5083. That section expressly provides that such a certificate shall be a complete defense to the charge of having in his possession a car the numbers of which have been altered, defaced, or tampered with. The purchaser of a secondhand car is thus afforded the fullest opportunity, merely by taking the precaution pointed out in the statute, to protect himself.
What has been said and the authorities cited dispose not only of the claim of appellant with respect to the construction of the statute, but of the further contention that the statute so construed is unconstitutional. There was no error in the instruction given, or in refusing those asked on this point.
[5] II. Whether the engine number on the car found in the possession of the appellant had been altered was a question of fact to which most of the evidence introduced on the trial was directed. In that connection, the court properly admitted testimony tending to identify the car in the appellant's possession, by various peculiarities in its appearance, as one that had, a short time before, been stolen from the owner in Ames and the engine number of which was different from that appearing on the car in the possession of the appellant. Such testimony tended to support the contention of the state that the engine number, which it was claimed showed evidences of having been tampered with, had been changed.
III. Under the evidence, it was clearly a question for the jury whether the engine number on the car in appellant's possession had been altered.
[6][7] IV. Complaint is made of the refusal of the court to give an instruction to the effect that any statements made by the defendant after his arrest which were induced by statements of the officers that it would be better for him to talk, or that he would be imprisoned if he did not talk, were not voluntary and should not be considered by the jury.
The record discloses nothing requiring such an instruction. There was testimony that appellant made certain contradictory statements as to how and of whom he obtained the car in question. They were not confessions of guilt of the crime charged. State v. Novak, 109 Iowa, 717, 79 N. W. 465;State v. Abrams, 131 Iowa, 479, 108 N. W. 1041. While there was testimony, elicited on cross–examination of a witness, the deputy sheriff, who testified to some of these alleged admissions, from which it might have been found that on one occasion, at the county attorney's office, after he was arrested, the defendant was told that he would be imprisoned unless he talked, it does not appear that any such admissions were made at that conversation. Nor is there anything in the record from which it could be inferred that such admissions were thereafter made under the influence of what was there said.
It is the well–settled rule in this state with respect to a confession of guilt that, where it appears to have been free and voluntary, the burden is upon the defendant to show coercion or inducement such as to require its exclusion. State v. Storms, 113 Iowa, 385, 85 N. W. 610, 86 Am. St. Rep. 380;State v. Icenbice, 126 Iowa, 16, 101 N....
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