Opinion ID: 2216780
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Did trial court err in overruling defendant's motion for an adjudication of law points?

Text: On the same date that defendant filed his pretrial motion to dismiss, he also filed a motion for an adjudication of law points in four divisions. The first three divisions sought an adjudication of whether the facts alleged in the three paragraphs of the State's supplemental bill of particulars constituted second degree murder, as defined in sections 707.1, .3, Supplement to the Code 1977. The fourth division requested the court to determine that neither suicide nor aiding and abetting suicide constitutes a crime in this state. Trial court overruled the first three divisions of defendant's motion because they sought resolution of factual disputes and because whether second degree murder or some included offense would be submitted to the jury was unknown at that stage of the proceedings. The court did, however, rule that suicide is not a crime in Iowa and that persons cannot be convicted of aiding and abetting an activity which is not criminal. On appeal, defendant challenges the denial of an adjudication regarding the first three divisions of his motion. Motions for adjudications of law points are allowed in criminal cases by authority of Iowa R.Crim.P. 10(2). State v. Iowa District Court, 271 N.W.2d 704, 706 (Iowa 1978). As required under Iowa R.Civ.P. 105, such motions may seek to resolve only issues which are legal in nature. Iowa District Court, 271 N.W.2d at 706. Contrary to one of defendant's arguments, no factual issues may be thus resolved. Iowa R.Crim.P. 10(8) [3] does not provide otherwise; it merely refers to the fact that factual issues may be resolved in determining some types of pretrial motions, not all pretrial motions. Alternatively, defendant argues that the factual allegations in the supplemental bill were not controverted. We disagree. By pleading not guilty to the charge, defendant controverted and placed in issue every material allegation of the indictment. State v. Nelson, 234 N.W.2d 368, 372 (Iowa 1975). He neither stipulated to any facts alleged in the supplemental bill of particulars nor in any other way superseded that effect of his plea. The only sense in which there was no factual dispute is that defendant may have considered the factual allegations in the supplemental bill of particulars, upon which the legal determinations were sought, to be purely hypothetical. We have already expressed our unwillingness to require trial courts to spend time answering speculative and abstract legal questions which may become moot by the time the facts are finally determined. Iowa District Court, 271 N.W.2d at 706; see Andersen Construction Co. v. National Bank, 262 N.W.2d 563, 566 (Iowa 1978). The first three divisions of the motion were appropriately overruled.