State v. Fairweather
| Decision Date | 06 March 1923 |
| Docket Number | No. 35091.,35091. |
| Citation | 195 Iowa 437,192 N.W. 266 |
| Parties | STATE v. FAIRWEATHER. |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Appeal from District Court, Black Hawk County; George W. Wood, Judge.
The opinion sufficiently states the case. Affirmed.John H. Meyers, of Waterloo, for appellant.
Ben J. Gibson, Atty. Gen., and B. J. Flick, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.
The defendant was indicted upon the charge of maintaining a gambling nuisance. On arraignment he entered a plea of not guilty, which he later withdrew, and entered a plea of guilty. Thereafter, appearing in person and by counsel, and being given opportunity to show cause, if any he had, why judgment should not be pronounced upon his plea of guilty, and failing so to do, the court ordered and adjudged that he be committed to the jail of said county for a term of nine months, and pay the costs of prosecution. From this judgment the defendant appeals on the following grounds: First, that the judgment is indefinite, uncertain, and void in that it does not fix “the time when the sentence is to commence or when it shall expire; second, there is no finding or judicial determination of defendant's guilt; third, that the court entered judgment as upon a plea of guilty of a liquor nuisance when the charge in which he was arraigned was for keeping a gambling house; and, fourth, that the punishment assessed against him is excessive.
[1] There is no merit in the objection to the judgment for want of definite statement of the beginning and end of the term of imprisonment. It is definitely stated that the defendant be committed to jail for a term of nine months, and in the absence of other order or judgment this necessarily means nine months, neither more nor less, from the date of its entry, or at least from the date when the mittimus is served and he submits to the execution of the sentence. The further point that the court in making entry of the plea of guilty or in entering judgment thereon made use of the phrase “liquor nuisance” loses its force by the showing made in the amended abstract that the record was duly corrected in the presence of defendant and his counsel, and made to show the fact that the plea of guilty was entered to the indictment for maintaining a gambling nuisance.
[2] The exception upon which principal stress is laid is that the sentense is too severe. It is said the appellant's offense was not an aggravated or flagrant one, and, while admitting that he violated the law, and thus...
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