State v. O'KELLY

211 N.W.2d 589, 1973 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 1126
CourtSupreme Court of Iowa
DecidedOctober 17, 1973
Docket55895
StatusPublished
Cited by62 cases

This text of 211 N.W.2d 589 (State v. O'KELLY) 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. O'KELLY, 211 N.W.2d 589, 1973 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 1126 (iowa 1973).

Opinion

UHLENHOPP, Justice.

This appeal involves questions which arose in a prosecution for receiving stolen goods under § 712.1, Code 1973.

On the night of September 1, 1969, someone stole a large safe from the office of Delight Wholesale Company in Omaha, Nebraska. Money bags in the safe contained $2,614.83. Later that night an Omaha police officer spied a pickup truck hauling a safe. The occupants of the truck fled, but the officer seized the truck and safe and placed them in the Omaha police garage. Still later that night, someone stole the pickup and safe from the police garage.

That same night a farmer in Potta-wattamie County, Iowa, was disturbed by a noise. The next morning, as he was mending fence, he observed vehicle tracks running down to the fence. He discovered a safe, covered with weeds, just over the fence in his field. He notified the Potta-wattamie County sheriff’s department, which called in the Omaha police. After ascertaining that the safe was from Delight Wholesale, Omaha police officers and a Pottawattamie County deputy sheriff set up surveillance at the site of the safe. They placed an electronic listening device near the safe and listened and watched throughout the day and evening of September 2.

About 10:30 p.m. on September 2 a car drove up and two individuals alighted. Shortly the officers heard mumbling of voices and beating on the safe. The mumbling stopped, and the two individuals carried objects to the road. The officers closed in. One of the two individuals — defendant William R. O’Kelly — tried to move back into the brush but halted when an officer fired a gun into the air. The objects which the two individuals had carried to the road were the safe door, the Delight Wholesale money bags containing the proper amount, sledge hammers, bars, and other devices for breaking open a safe.

The deputy sheriff took the two individuals into custody. Omaha authorities charged defendant in Nebraska with burglary of the Delight Wholesale establishment and sought extradition. Defendant waived extradition, because, he claims, a *592 judge of Council Bluffs Municipal Court and an assistant county attorney of Potta-wattamie County promised no charges would be preferred against him in Iowa. Defendant was tried for burglary in Omaha, but the jury could not agree. The case was not retried for three terms, whereupon it was dismissed pursuant to Nebraska law.

The county attorney of Pottawattamie County then charged defendant with receiving stolen property and extradited him to Iowa. Trial began on that charge, but a mistrial was declared during the course of the proceedings. Defendant was then tried again — the present trial.

During the present trial a number of pictures were introduced into evidence. At one point the following events occurred regarding a picture which had been marked as an exhibit:

WITNESS CHRISTIAN [Delight Wholesale employee] : This is the morning that the Omaha police department brought the money back to us for recounting. We laid it on the floor, the picture, so he could get it. This is the same money we counted.
MR. WATTS [defense counsel]: Well, I will object then on foundation until I can question him as to the identity, how he ascertained identity.
THE COURT: You haven’t asked him; he didn’t say that photograph was a fair representation.
WITNESS: It is a fair representation of what was shown and delivered to me in the office of the Delight Wholesale Company on or about September 3, 1969.

Defendant filed an affidavit that this, as well as the trial court’s facial expressions, rulings, and voice inflections during trial, prevented defendant from having a fair trial. The affidavit was not supported by affidavits of others.

Also during the trial, defense counsel brought out on cross-examination of the farmer that hunters and others came on the farm occasionally. The arguments to the jury were not reported, but during the prosecutor’s closing argument the following was taken down:

MR. WATTS: Your Honor, at this time the defendant moves the court for a mistrial, for the reason that the prosecutor has just told the jury in the middle of his closing argument that if there were hunters, as I recall the testimony, why didn’t the defendant produce them so the jury could hear that they were out there hunting, and I move for a mistrial on the ground that the defendant is not required to produce any evidence whatsoever to prove his innocence in the course of the trial.
THE COURT: Motion is overruled. I might suggest to counsel, you had better stay well within the rules or you are getting on dangerous ground.

Subsequently this also was taken down:

MR. WATTS: I make the same objection. Now he referred to why I did not subpoena on Mr. O’Kelly’s behalf further evidence. He is pointing to pictures and gathering them in his hands, if I wanted more, and I again move for a mistrial that that is inferring to the jury that the defendant has to prove his innocence.
THE COURT: Motion is overruled.

In its instructions, the trial court told the jury, among other things, that defendant was presumed innocent and that the burden of proof rested on the State to prove defendant guilty by the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. The trial judge also instructed that nothing he did or said during the trial constituted any intimation of what the verdict should be.

The jury found defendant guilty, and, after overruling defendant’s motion for new trial, the trial court sentenced' him. He appealed.

Defendant presses these contentions here: (1) the present prosecution is barred by double jeopardy, (2) the safe and other *593 articles were illegally seized and evidence of them is therefore inadmissible, (3) defendant was promised immunity in Iowa and therefore Iowa cannot prosecute him, (4) the State did not introduce substantial evidence in support of the information, and (5) the trial court and the prosecutor committed misconduct.

T. Double Jeopardy. Defendant’s assertion of double jeopardy involves several assumptions which we accept arguendo only, such as that the doctrine applies between two states. The double jeopardy clauses are found in Article I, § 12, of the Iowa Constitution and in Amendment S to the United States Constitution. This part of Amendment 5 was held applicable to the states in Benton v. Maryland, 395 U.S. 784, 89 S.Ct. 2056, 23 L.Ed.2d 707.

Defendant makes three assertions regarding double jeopardy relying largely on federal decisions interpreting Amendment 5. He first asserts what amounts to episodic immunity; that is, a defendant once tried cannot be tried on another charge growing out of the same episode. He contends that this episode began with the Delight Wholesale burglary one night and ended with the removal of the contents of the safe in the farmer’s field the next night. He says that having been tried on a charge of burglary, he cannot be tried on a charge of receiving stolen property in connection with that episode.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

State of Iowa v. Nicholas Hodges
Court of Appeals of Iowa, 2018
Daniels v. State
913 A.2d 617 (Court of Special Appeals of Maryland, 2006)
McDuff v. State
763 So. 2d 850 (Mississippi Supreme Court, 2000)
State Ex Rel. State v. Gustke
516 S.E.2d 283 (West Virginia Supreme Court, 1999)
Beverly Ann McDuff v. State of Mississippi
Mississippi Supreme Court, 1998
State v. Lloyd
513 N.W.2d 742 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1994)
State v. Stevens
620 A.2d 789 (Supreme Court of Connecticut, 1993)
State v. Stevens
603 A.2d 1203 (Connecticut Appellate Court, 1992)
State v. McKettrick
480 N.W.2d 52 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1992)
Piotrowski v. Commissioner of Public Safety
453 N.W.2d 689 (Supreme Court of Minnesota, 1990)
People v. Fenton
532 N.E.2d 228 (Illinois Supreme Court, 1988)
State v. Jackson
422 N.W.2d 475 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1988)
People v. Fenton
506 N.E.2d 979 (Appellate Court of Illinois, 1987)
People v. Meyer
379 N.W.2d 59 (Michigan Supreme Court, 1985)
Commonwealth v. Phillips
487 A.2d 962 (Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, 1985)
State v. Wagner
359 N.W.2d 487 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1984)
Schrier v. State
347 N.W.2d 657 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1984)
State v. Slawek
338 N.W.2d 120 (Court of Appeals of Wisconsin, 1983)
State v. Epps
322 N.W.2d 288 (Supreme Court of Iowa, 1982)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
211 N.W.2d 589, 1973 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 1126, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-okelly-iowa-1973.