State v. Cameron

117 N.W.2d 816, 254 Iowa 505, 1962 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 775
CourtSupreme Court of Iowa
DecidedNovember 13, 1962
Docket50748
StatusPublished
Cited by15 cases

This text of 117 N.W.2d 816 (State v. Cameron) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Iowa primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Cameron, 117 N.W.2d 816, 254 Iowa 505, 1962 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 775 (iowa 1962).

Opinion

*507 Thompson, J.

— On December 1, 1961, a person giving the name of Henry Cameron purchased a pistol and box of shells at Kautzky’s, a sports goods store in Fort Dodge. In payment he gave a check in the amount of $33.25. Leonard Will, the manager of the store, made the sale. The purchaser also signed an affidavit as required by Iowa law which gave his name, address — stated as Route 3, Bx. H 2, Fort Dodge, Iowa — his occupation, stated as “farmer”, and told Will he resided near Lehigh, a small town in the vicinity of Fort Dodge. His age was stated as 37. Will was unable to positively identify the defendant as the man who gave him the check and received the merchandise. He said, however, that the defendant was very near the same stature as that of the man who gave him the cheek: “As near as I can recollect, this is the same man. * * # We take 30, 40, 50 checks a day and it does require a lot of remembering to state just exactly every one.” The check was sent to the Union Trust and Savings Bank of Fort Dodge and was returned marked “No Acct.” The defendant was shortly apprehended in Eldora and returned to Fort Dodge, where he was indicted, tried, convicted and sentenced for the crime of false uttering of a check in violation of Code section 713.3, and so brings his appeal to this court.

I. The unusual nature of the cheek involved brings the first difficulty in the case, and leads to the inescapable conclusion that the judgment of the trial court must be reversed. We set out a copy of the check:

UNION TRUST & SAVINGS BANK 72-1859 713
Lehigh
POR3? ©ODGE, IOWA 12-1-61
Pay to the
order of _Kautzkys_ $33.25
Thirty Three & 25/100 ------------Dollars
For __ Henry Cameron
Rt. #3 Bx. H 2 Ft Dodge Acc. #A2251

It will be at once observed that the location of the drawee bank, the Union Trust & Savings Bank, is nowhere set out as is *508 customary with bank checks. On the date line the words “Fort Dodge, Iowa” were printed; but the words “Fort Dodge” were obliterated and the word “Lehigh” substituted. If there is any place of location of the bank upon which the cheek was drawn, it is found only in the -word “Lehigh”. It will be noted that the indictment in the case refers to “a false check, drawn on the Union Trust & Savings Bank of Lehigh, Iowa”. Without much doubt, the ordinary person looking at the check in question would conclude that it was drawn on a bank of that name in Lehigh. If we do not accept Lehigh as the location of the bank, there is no location, and so no definite bank, specified.

However, for a reason not explained in the record, the check was presented to the Union Trust and Savings Bank of Fort. Dodge, was by it rejected and returned to the payee, Kautzky’s, with the notation “Returned by Union Trust and Savings Bank, Fort Dodge, Iowa; returned unpaid for reason indicated — No Acct.”

Why the check was presented to a bank in Fort Dodge upon which it was not drawn we are not told. We may speculate that in fact the Union Trust and Savings Bank of Fort Dodge had an office in Lehigh and kept all records of deposits, etc., in the home bank at Fort Dodge; but this is purely conjecture. We do not take judicial notice of the location of banks or their names in various places. On the record, we have only a check drawn on a bank in Lehigh or on a bank in an unnamed location, which "was presented to- a bank in Fort Dodge and bj’’ it returned unpaid. Much of the prosecution’s case depends on a showing that the check was presented to the bank upon which it was drawn; but there is no proof of this.

Section 713.3 provides that one who with fraudulent intent makes, utters or gives any check drawn upon any bank and who secures anything of value therefor, and who* knowingly does not have an arrangement, understanding, or funds with such bank sufficient to meet or pay the check so drawn, is guilty of the offense of false uttering of a check. Section 713.4 makes the fact that payment of a check is refused by the bank upon which it is drawn when presented in the usual course of business material evidence of such lack of arrangement, understanding or funds to *509 meet it. The trial court in its Instruction No. 7 paraphrased these sections, closing with these words: “You are further instructed that the fact that payment of said check when presented in the usual course of business shall be refused by the bank upon which it is drawn shall be material and competent evidence of such lack of arrangement, understanding or lack of funds.”

The court was here telling the jury it might find a vital element of the case upon nonexistent evidence. In the absence of any showing that the cheek had been presented to a definite bank upon which it was drawn this instruction was erroneous and highly prejudicial. We discussed section 713.4, supra, in State v. Lansman, 245 Iowa 102, 60 N.W.2d 815; but in the absence of a definite showing that the check was presented to the bank on which it was drawn the section has no. application.

The State says there was other evidence that the defendant had no account at any bank. This is true; there is testimony of a police officer that he so stated. But this hardly answers the question. The admission of erroneously prejudicial evidence, or an erroneous instruction which presumes there is evidence which there is not, is not cured by other evidence tending to prove the same point. We cannot know which the jury believed. Nor does the statement relied upon, that defendant admitted he had no account in any bank, quite meet the requirements of the statute in any event. There is included the necessity for the State to prove that the defendant not only had no account, but that he had no arrangement or understanding with the drawee bank to pay the check. Such an arrangement may be had even in the absence of sufficient funds.

II. A reversal is required by what has been said in Division I. However, the defendant urges other grounds for reversal which will in all probability arise upon another trial and so must be discussed. Section 755.17, Code of 1962, adopted by the Iowa legislature in 1959 by chapter 373, Acts of the Fifty-eighth General Assembly, provides: “Communications by arrested persons. Any peaee officer or other person having custody of any person arrested or restrained of his liberty for any reason whatever, shall, before preliminary hearing and arraignment, except in eases of imminent danger of escape, permit that person, with *510 out unnecessary delay after arrival at the place of detention, to call, consult, and see a member of his or her family or an attorney' of his or her choice. If a call is made, it shall be made in the presence of the person having custody of the one arrested or restrained. If the person arrested or restrained is intoxicated, or a person under eighteen years of age, the call shall be made by the person having custody.

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Bluebook (online)
117 N.W.2d 816, 254 Iowa 505, 1962 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 775, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-cameron-iowa-1962.