State v. Jacobs
| Decision Date | 12 January 1960 |
| Docket Number | No. 49834,49834 |
| Citation | 251 Iowa 314,100 N.W.2d 601 |
| Parties | STATE of Iowa, Appellant, v. Daniel Eugene JACOBS, Appellee. |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Norman A. Erbe, Atty. Gen., Marion Neely, Asst. Atty. Gen., Ray Hanrahan, Polk County Atty., Des Moines, for appellant.
Lex Hawkins, Des Moines, for appellee.
Defendant was arrested for driving a motor vehicle while intoxicated. After preliminary hearing in Des Moines Municipal Court a County Attorney's information was filed against him charging violation of Section 321.281, 1958 Code of Iowa, I.C.A.
At the trial, before any testimony was taken, defendant filed demurrer, and asked that the information be quashed, and the case dismissed.
Defendant's principal allegation was that the Polk County grand jury was in session and that under Section 769.2 of the Code, I.C.A., there was no constitutional nor statutory basis for filing a County Attorney's information in the Municipal Court. The trial court sustained the demurrer and dismissed the case. The State has appealed.
I. The trial court decided the case on one question of law and did not consider any other questions raised in the demurrer. We do not consider any other questions raised by defendant in the demurrer as relevant or effective.
The penalty in Section 321.281 which would pertain to defendant is: '* * * For the first offense by a fine of not less than three hundred dollars nor more than one thousand dollars, or by imprisonment in the county jail for a period of not to exceed one year, or by both such fine and imprisonment. * * *'
It is obvious that if defendant was guilty, the crime was what is commonly known as an 'indictable misdemeanor'.
In order to arrive at the intent of the legislature in connection with Section 769.2 it is necessary that we consider the pertinent parts of both Sections 769.1 and 769.2:
769.1: * * *' (Emphasis ours.)
769.2: (Emphasis ours.)
II. We will outline the jurisdiction, as to criminal procedure, of the various courts in our judicial system.
The basic constitutional provision as to criminal jurisdiction appears in Article I, Section 11, I.C.A.: 'All offenses less than felony and in which the punishment does not exceed a fine of One hundred dollars, or imprisonment for thirty days, shall be tried summarily before a Justice of the Peace, or other officer authorized by law, on information under oath, without indictment, or the intervention of a grand jury, saving to the defendant the right of appeal; and no person shall be held to answer for any higher criminal offence, unless on presentment or indictment by a grand jury, * * *'
This constitutional provision was amended by amendment 3 in 'Amendments of 1884;' the pertinent part of amendment 3 is as follows: '* * * the General Assembly may provide for holding persons to answer for any criminal offense without the intervention of a Grand Jury.'
In 1911 under authority of the constitutional amendment the General Assembly (34 G.A.) adopted Chapter 769 of the Code, I.C.A., as to 'Information by County Attorney'. In 1915 the General Assembly (36 G.A.) adopted Chapter 602 of the Code, I.C.A., as to establishment and jurisdiction of municipal courts. When first adopted the General Assembly did not include in Section 769.2 the words 'or municipal'. These two words were adopted in 1945, creating the section as it now appears in 1958 Code, I.C.A.
The authority with reference to the jurisdiction of the district court in criminal cases appears in Section 604.1 as follows: 'The district court shall have general, original, and exclusive jurisdiction of all actions, proceedings, and remedies, both civil and criminal, except in cases where exclusive or concurrent jurisdiction is or may hereafter be conferred upon some other court or tribunal by the constitution and laws of the state, and shall have and exercise all the powers usually possessed and exercised by courts of record.'
The jurisdiction of municipal courts appears in Section 602.15 as follows: 'In all criminal matters the court shall exercise the jurisdiction conferred on the district court for the prosecution of misdemeanors, on justice of peace courts, mayors' courts, and police courts, except that the mayor's court of any incorporated city or town within such municipal court district other than the city within which said court is established shall have exclusive jurisdiction of prosecutions for the violations of the ordinances of such town.'
In State v. Berg, 237 Iowa 356, 21 N.W.2d 777, 778, we analyzed the statutory provisions in the following language:
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...imprisonment in jail. All other misdemeanors are simple. State v. Berg, 237 Iowa 356, 358, 21 N.W.2d 777, 778; State v. Jacobs, 251 Iowa 314, 316--318, 100 N.W.2d 601, 603. See also Article I, section 11, Constitution of The section under which the prosecution here under examination was sta......
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