State v. Koenig
| Decision Date | 05 April 1949 |
| Docket Number | 47307. |
| Citation | 36 N.W.2d 765,240 Iowa 592 |
| Parties | STATE v. KOENIG. |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Welch & Welch, of Logan, for appellant.
Robert L. Larson, Atty. Gen., Clarence Kading, Asst. Atty. Gen. and Michael Murray, County Atty. of Harrison County, of Logan for appellee.
An automobile operated by defendant in Logan, Iowa, collided with a truck. A deputy sheriff and a highway patrolman promptly took defendant into custody and placed him in jail. Shortly thereafter they conducted him to the office of Dr. Hook who repaired and sutured a bad tear in defendant's mouth and lower lip and took a sample of his blood. The officers delivered this to Dr. Weir for analysis of its alcoholic content. Thereafter defendant was indicted for operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated and with having been convicted theretofore of a like charge in the Municipal Court of Council Bluffs. Section 321.281, Code of Iowa 1946, I.C.A. He was convicted and has appealed. Various lay witnesses expressed conflicting opinions whether defendant was intoxicated and his counsel concede this was a question for the jury.
I. Defendant contends there was no competent evidence of his prior conviction in the Municipal Court of Council Bluffs for that it was not shown in the Record Book. R.C.P. 227 recites 'All judgments and orders must be entered on the record of the court * * *.' Code section 606.7, I.C.A., provides the Clerk of the District Court shall keep a book which may be known as the Record Book, and certain other books and dockets. Section 602.13 provides municipal court records shall be kept in substantially the same form and manner. In this case the judgment, in complete and proper form, was spread upon a page of a book kept by the Clerk of said court and denominated 'Appearance Docket and Fee Book, No. C27'.
The evidence shows this was the book in which the clerk recorded judgments in criminal cases. In the language of the clerk, 'This is our criminal record that we keep'. 'We haven't any other record in criminal cases.' The judgments entered therein by the clerk were based upon memoranda made by the judge upon the Court Calendar. This so called Appearance Docket and Fee Book, kept by the clerk, was thereafter signed by the judge, as the record. See section 604.38.
Defendant relies upon such cases as State v. Wieland, 217 Iowa 887, 251 N.W. 757. In general, these decisions hold a judgment cannot be said to be entered until it is spread by the clerk upon the Record Book and that the entry of the decision on the Court Calendar and notations in the Judgment Docket Appearance Docket, etc., do not constitute a judgment. This rule is not here applicable.
The so called 'Appearance Docket and Fee Book' in which this judgment was recorded was in fact what the statute states 'may be known as the 'Record Book". It was the 'Record Book' for judgments in criminal cases only and it was also the Appearance Docket and Fee Book for such cases. However, this did not affect the validity of the judgment. In Carr v. Bosworth, 72 Iowa 530, 34 N.W. 317, the court held the record of a judgment in a book designated 'Decrees of the Foreclosure of Mortgages' was valid stating the statute was directory and not compulsory, a strict compliance with its language was not demanded, its purpose was to require the proceedings to be kept of record in a book and if convenience demanded and the rights of parties were not prejudiced the proper officers or the court might provide an additional book or books for part of the entries. This decision was followed in Brown v. Barngrover, 82 Iowa 204, 207, 47 N.W. 1082, 1083, in which the judgment was recorded in a book called 'Record of Judgments by Confession.' These decisions appear to accord with the general rule. 49 C.J.S., Judgments, § 110, pp. 235, 236; 30 Am.Jur. 853, Judgments, § 65; Annotations in 28 L.R.A. 625. We hold the record of the judgment in...
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