State v. Stoner

• Citation: 179 N.W. 867,189 Iowa 1304
• Decision Date: 16 November 1920
• Docket Number: No. 33283.,33283.
• Parties: STATE v. STONER.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

189 Iowa 1304

179 N.W. 867

STATE

v.STONER.

No. 33283.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Nov. 16, 1920.

Appeal from District Court, Polk County; Joseph E. Meyer, Judge.

The accused was convicted of having owned or kept intoxicating liquors with intent to sell the same in Polk county. She appeals. Affirmed.Joseph D. Laws, of Des Moines, for appellant.

H. M. Havner, Atty. Gen., and F. C. Davidson, Asst. Atty. Gen., and Shelby M. Cullison, of Harlan, for the State.

LADD, J.

The only issue to be decided is whether the evidence is sufficient to sustain the verdict; appellant contending that it conclusively appeared that defendant was acting under the coercion of her husband. On her way home from St. Joseph, Mo., over the Chicago Great Western Railroad Company's railway, the accused was accompanied by her husband and little daughter. Upon her arrival at Des Moines she carried a dark-colored handbag from the train toward the waiting room. Before reaching that room she was accosted by an officer, whom she told, on inquiry, that the handbag did not belong to her, and explained that, as a stranger was about to leave the train, he had said, “You take this suit case and set it in the waiting room, and I will give you a dollar;” that she at first refused, but, upon being told by her husband to “pick it up and carry it,” she obeyed him. She testified to this, and that, but for what her husband said, she would not have carried the handbag. Her husband, who was standing near, then stepped up to the officer and told him that the woman had nothing to do with the bag, whereupon both were arrested. She described the stranger as a big fellow with mustache, accompanied by a young fellow, and swore she never saw either before. Her husband identified him as Jack Blades, whereupon she hit him on the chest with her fist and told him to “shut up.” Her explanation was that her little girl became hungry on the way, and the stranger procured for her a sandwich, and that that was the way she became acquainted with him. But a special officer appears to have boarded the train at Lamoni, observed the accused with her husband and daughter in one of the coaches, and that near them were certain suit cases, and that he notified the sheriff's office at Des Moines. A special officer of the railroad company, upon boarding the train at Lorimer, noticed appellant with her husband and daughter in the chair car, and near them several suit cases, subsequently found to contain intoxicating liquors, and upon arriving at the Union Station observed the accused, accompanied by her husband, alight from the train with her handbag, as previously stated. They were sitting in the car, she on one side of the aisle and her husband on the other. On the way, he moved one or two of the suit cases near where she sat. The witness swore that she remained in her seat and that her husband finally sat with her, but stood in the end of a car in approaching the city; that he did not see her talk with any man other than her husband, and did see them leave the train with a heavy-laden handbag; that Blades was not sitting near the defendant and her husband, and that he did not see him talking to them. Two deputy sheriffs boarded the train in the suburbs of the city, went into the chair car, and noticed defendant with her little girl seated near the middle of the car; noticed a grip, handbag, and...