State v. Kennedy

224 N.W.2d 223, 76 A.L.R. 3d 968, 1974 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 1192
CourtSupreme Court of Iowa
DecidedDecember 18, 1974
Docket56458
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 224 N.W.2d 223 (State v. Kennedy) 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. Kennedy, 224 N.W.2d 223, 76 A.L.R. 3d 968, 1974 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 1192 (iowa 1974).

Opinions

UHLENHOPP, Justice.

This appeal involves problems which arose during trial of a charge of tampering with a motor-vehicle odometer, an indictable misdemeanor under § 321.71(2) and (16), Code 1973:

2. No person shall knowingly tamper with, adjust, alter, change, set back, disconnect or fail to connect the odometer of any motor vehicle, or cause any of the foregoing to occur to an odometer of a motor vehicle, so as to reflect a lower mileage than the true mileage driven by the motor vehicle.
16. Any person who violates the provisions of this section shall be punished by a fine of not less than four hundred dollars and not more than one thousand dollars or by imprisonment in the county jail for a period not to exceed ninety days, or punished by both such fine and imprisonment.

Under § 321.71(8), since revised, the transferor of a motor vehicle must provide the transferee with a signed certification of the odometer reading. The transferee’s new title certificate shows that mileage.

The parties waived a jury. Code 1973, § 780.23. The trial court could find the following from the evidence. Continental Oil Company, through its office in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, owned a Plymouth station wagon which was registered in Linn County, Iowa, and was driven by Continental’s employee, James A. Martin. In July 1972, Continental traded the car to First Avenue Plymouth in Cedar Rapids. At that time, according to Martin, the car had been driven nearly 100,-000 miles. First Avenue Plymouth transferred the car to Cedar Valley Motors of Cedar Rapids, which sold the car to defendant Richard Dale Kennedy of Cedar Rapids and certified that the true mileage on the car was unknown but that the odometer read 99,123.8 miles. Defendant paid $1000 for the car according to his signed application for a title certificate. Some of the testimony indicates that the transaction between Cedar Valley and defendant occurred in July 1972; Cedar Valley’s odometer certification was dated July 31, 1972; but defendant’s title certificate was dated August 24, 1972. Defendant’s title certificate recited, “Mileage UNK.”

About September 6, 1972, defendant sold the car for $1800 to John T. Marshall, a plant employee in Cedar Rapids. In connection with that sale, defendant certified that the true mileage on the car was 51,647 miles. But for reasons of his own, defendant did not certify the odometer reading. However, the odometer in fact read about 51,500 miles, which defendant orally assured Marshall was correct. Copies of the two odometer certifications are appended. Marshall’s title certificate recited, “Mileage 51547,” and stated that the car was encumbered to Marshall’s credit union.

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Related

Boren v. State
761 S.W.2d 885 (Supreme Court of Arkansas, 1988)
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464 A.2d 758 (Supreme Court of Connecticut, 1983)
State v. Fingert
298 N.W.2d 249 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1980)
State v. Kennedy
224 N.W.2d 223 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1974)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
224 N.W.2d 223, 76 A.L.R. 3d 968, 1974 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 1192, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-kennedy-iowa-1974.