Opinion ID: 1833285
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Heading: Forgery Under the Iowa Criminal Code.

Text: The Iowa Criminal Code was adopted in 1976. The forgery chapter was replaced with a new chapter entitled False Use of a Financial Instrument. 1976 Iowa Acts ch. 1245, §§ 1501-06, at 565. This was a part of a massive criminal code revision that revised Iowa criminal laws and procedures effective January 1, 1978. Id. The 1978 revision was primarily a restatement of prior law. Emery v. Fenton, 266 N.W.2d 6, 8 (Iowa 1978). The new forgery statute defined the offense as: The use of a financial instrument with the intent to obtain fraudulently anything of value by one who knows that the instrument is not what it purports to be, or who knows that he or she is not the person nor the authorized agent of the person who, as shown on the instrument, has the right to so use the instrument, shall constitute the false use of a financial instrument. Iowa Code § 715.6 (1979). We interpreted section 715.6 in State v. Schoelerman, 315 N.W.2d 67 (Iowa 1982). In Schoelerman, the defendant wrote two checks drawn on a bank where he had no account. The nonpersonal counter checks were furnished by the merchant to whom the checks were made payable. The defendant signed his own name as drawer to both checks. We recognized section 715.6 was a consolidation of a number of forgery and forgery-related offenses which previously appeared in various parts of the prior Code. It was necessary that we distinguish the new fraudulent use of a financial instrument offense from the new theft provisions of the Code. Schoelerman, 315 N.W.2d at 73. The goal of section 715.6 was to combine in one offense all crimes that have a similar type impact on the integrity of the financial system. Id. One of the main purposes of this consolidation is to eliminate overlap and duplication.... Id. To accomplish the legislative purpose, it was necessary to harmonize the provisions of section 715.6 with the bad check provisions of section 714.1(6) that provided that theft was committed when a person makes, utters, draws, delivers, or gives any check ... on any bank, person or corporation, and obtains property ... in exchange therefor, if the person knows that such check ... or written order will not be paid when presented. Iowa Code § 714.1(6). We held that the legislature did not intend to include within the forgery offense the writing of a check, signed by the defendant maker in his own name, which draws on a bank where the defendant has no account. Schoelerman, 315 N.W.2d at 73. We reached this conclusion because (1) the writing of such a check was generally not considered to constitute forgery, (2) the legislative goal of eliminating overlap and duplication by enacting the forgery statute and the more specific theft by bad check statute, applied to the writing of such check, and (3) the adverse impact of such a check on the financial system was not the same type or magnitude as that involved in the passing of a forged or altered check. Id. at 73-74. Under section 715.6, false use was defined as not being what it purports to be or not being the person authorized to use it. Under this statutory definition, if a defendant signed his or her true name as the drawer of a worthless check, the check was still what it purported to be. Id. at 75.