State v. Hollingsworth
| Decision Date | 11 December 1906 |
| Citation | 109 N.W. 1003,132 Iowa 471 |
| Parties | STATE OF IOWA, Appellant, v. J. W. HOLLINGSWORTH, Appellee |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Appeal from Polk District Court.--HON. W. H. MCHENRY, Judge.
DEFENDANT was indicted for the crime of cheating by false pretenses. He demurred to the indictment and his demurrer was sustained. The State appeals.
Affirmed.
Chas W. Mullan, Attorney-General, and Jesse A. Miller, County Attorney, for the State.
No appearance for appellee.
The pretenses which it is alleged defendant made are as follows "That he, the said J. W. Hollingsworth was going to marry, and was then engaged to marry, the said V. W Rockwood; that he, the said J. W. Hollingsworth, had arranged to go into business at Sioux Falls, and needed, and would use in establishing said business, said eight hundred dollars; and that he, the said J. W. Hollingsworth, would go to Sioux Falls and establish said business, and that on July 15, 1903, said J. W. Hollingsworth and V. W. Rockwood would be married." The falsity of the statements is charged in these words:
Whereas, in truth and in fact the aforesaid statements, pretenses and representations which were then and there made by the said J. W. Hollingsworth to the said V. W. Rockwood were false, fraudulent and untrue, that the said J. W. Hollingsworth was not going to marry the said V. W. Rockwood, and said J. W. Hollingsworth was not then and there in good faith engaged to marry the said V. W. Rockwood, that the said J. W. Hollingsworth had not arranged to go into business at Sioux Falls, and did not need and would not use in establishing said business eight hundred dollars, and the said J. W. Hollingsworth did not intend to go into business at Sioux Falls, and did not go to Sioux Falls and establish said business and did not intend on July 15, 1903, to marry the said V. W. Rockwood, for in truth and in fact the said J. W. Hollingsworth had married another on the 20th day of June, 1903, and was then and there, at the time of the making of said false statements, representations and pretenses, a married man.
The demurrer is based upon the ground that no offense was charged, and the argument in support of it, we presume, must have been that the representations and statements alleged do not amount to false pretenses, but were nothing more than promises to do an act in the future, or of such a character that the prosecutrix could not have been deceived thereby. A pretense must, of course, be a representation as to an existing fact or past event, and not a mere promise to do something in the future or a representation as to something to take place in the future. Yet a promise to do something in the future may be so connected with a statement as to an existing fact as that the statement of fact only becomes effective because of the promise, and in such cases the two may be considered together in determining the character of the pretense. State v. Tripp, 113 Iowa 698, 84 N.W. 546; State v. Montgomery, 56 Iowa 195, 9 N.W. 120.
With these rules in mind, we now go directly to the charge. The statement that defendant was going to marry the prosecutrix Rockwood, was merely a...
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