State v. Smith
| Decision Date | 26 June 1974 |
| Docket Number | No. 55880,55880 |
| Citation | 219 N.W.2d 655 |
| Parties | STATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. Marva Ann SMITH, Appellant. |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
John P. Roehrick, Des Moines, for appellant.
Richard C. Turner, Atty. Gen., Fred M. Haskins, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Ray A. Fenton, County Atty., for appellee.
Heard before MOORE, C.J., and MASON, REES, REYNOLDSON and McCORMICK, JJ.
In this appeal we must decide whether a heroin addict should be permitted to set up her addiction as a defense to a charge of possession of a controlled substance (violation of what is now § 204.401 (3), The Code, 1973).
The facts are not in dispute. Defendant was arrested on a traffic charge warrant. In a police station search incident to the booking procedures, heroin and drug-use paraphernalia were found in her possession.
By pre-trial notice under § 777.18, The Code (claiming 'irresistible impulse'), motion to direct verdict, objections to instructions and motion in arrest of judgment and for new trial, defendant raised her defense and preserved the alleged error in trial court's refusal to accept it.
Defendant offered expert testimony through a toxicologist and pharmacologist, and a psychiatrist, that while defendant would know the difference between right and wrong and the legal consequences of her conduct, she could not as an addict without help, exercise any control over seeking and possessing the drug. Trial court sustained the objection this evidence was irrelevant.
Defendant testified her addict brother started her on the drug. It took three weeks for her to become an addict. She supported her $80 per day habit by prostitution. Defendant testified she knew her possession of the drug was illegal, but she felt she needed it in order to exist.
The jury returned a verdict of guilty. On August 31, 1972 defendant was sentenced to be incarcerated for a period of one year, the sentence to be suspended during defendant's good behavior.
Defendant raises two issues in her brief relating to trial court's alleged error in rejecting her sole defense.
On the element of intent trial court properly instructed the State must prove under § 204.401(3), The Code, 'That the Defendant knowingly or intentionally had in her possession heroin.' Defendant complains this language does not adequately define the requisite legal intent: there must also be a voluntary, willful possession by defendant.
The defense defendant seeks to legitimize had its genesis in Robinson v. California, 370 U.S. 660, 82 S.Ct. 1417, 8 L.Ed.2d 758 (1962). In Robinson an alleged addict successfully attacked a California statute which made it a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment for any person to 'be addicted to the use of narcotics.' The majority found the legislation made the status of narcotic addiction a criminal offense. It held to imprison a person thus afflicted even though he had never touched a narcotic drug in California imposed a cruel and inhuman punishment in violation of Amendments 8 and 14, United States Constitution.
Following Robinson a number of federal courts at least intimated that decision might be extended to free the non-trafficking addict-possessor from criminal punishment. See United States v. Bishop, 469 F.2d 1337 (1 Cir. 1972); Watson v. United States, 439 F.2d 442 (D.C. Cir. 1970); United States v. Lindsey, 324 F.Supp. 55 (D.C. 1971); United States v. Ashton, 317 F.Supp. 860 (D.C. 1970).
Finally, in United States v. Moore, 486 F.2d 1139 (D.C. Cir. 1973) the federal circuit court squarely confronted the issue defendant presents here, and in a 5 to 4 plurality opinion affirmed the conviction. Although the result in Moore was reached through a plurality, the majority nevertheless did expressly disapprove the language in Watson which would support reversing this defendant's conviction.
The full panoply of arguments for and against recognition of the defense, from all viewpoints, are marshalled in the 121 pages comprising the opinions filed in Moore. To attempt a summary here would be duplicious and unnecessary.
It is sufficient, we believe, to refer to the conflicting considerations articulated in Moore and to state the arguments against adopting the defense are more persuasive to this court.
In this State an addict can request or obtain treatment and rehabilitation without the request or fact of treatment being used against such person in any court, grand jury or administrative proceeding. Sections 224A.2, 224A.3, The Code, 1973. Those addicts who voluntarily appear daily for assistance at treatment centers do reflect the irrelevancy of the testimony of defendant's...
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