State v. Moore

• Decision Date: 13 December 1904
• Citation: 125 Iowa 749,101 N.W. 732
• Parties: STATE v. MOORE.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

125 Iowa 749

101 N.W. 732

STATE

v.MOORE.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Dec. 13, 1904.

Appeal from District Court, Winneshiek County; A. N. Hobson, Judge.

The defendant was convicted of having knowingly and willfully resisted an officer in attempting to serve a search warrant, and appeals. Affirmed.M. A. Harmon and F. S. Burling, for appellant.

Charles W. Mullen, Atty. Gen., and Lawrence De Graff, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

LADD, J.

The indictment charged defendant with knowingly and willfully resisting an officer in the service of a search warrant issued by G. W. Esty, Jr., a justice of the peace in and for Bloomfield township, Winneshiek county, Iowa, commanding “any officer of Winneshiek county, Iowa, to make search on the person of or dwelling house and barn or other out-building of said C. R. Moore in section 2, township 96, range 7, for about ten bushels of corn and 3 or 4 bushels of oats claimed to be owned by one Wm. Martens.” This identifies the process the service of which is alleged to have been resisted, and that is all that was required in the indictment. The affidavit and search warrant corresponded therewith in so far as to indicate that they were the papers referred to, and, as the descriptions of the premises to be searched contained in the same in no manner conflicted with that of the indictment, they were rightly received in evidence. The objection interposed was that the description in the search warrant was not sufficiently definite to meet the requirement of section 5550 of the Code and section 8 of article 1 of the Constitution, exacting that the place be “particularly described.” It was designated in the affidavit “the dwelling house or outbuildings of said C. R. Moore situated in Bloomfield Township in said county in which the said Moore so resides with his family,” and was entitled as in Winneshiek county, state of Iowa. The warrant was entitled the same as the affidavit, and commanded immediate search “on the person of or the dwelling house and barn or other out-building of the said C. R. Moore in section 2, township 96, range 7, for the following property; about 10 bushels corn and 3 or 4 sacks oats.” The place to be searched, then, was his dwelling and outbuildings, and these were located by the affidavit in the township, and by the warrant on a particular section. The dwelling house of a man is the house in which he dwells. He may or may not own it. He may own others and rent them, but no one would construe one of these to be intended by a search warrant commanding a search of his dwelling house. Moreover, the evidence showed that he had no other residence in the township. The warrant, then, described the place with such particularity that it could not have been mistaken. A description which points out or identifies the place to be searched with such reasonable certainty as will obviate any mistake in locating it...