Opinion ID: 2174587
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: facts

Text: On April 1, 1991, Waterloo police searched Brian Joseph Lange's residence and found two marijuana plants growing in a closet. Police then arrested Lange. On May 7, a trial information was filed charging him with manufacture of a controlled substance (marijuana) in violation of Iowa Code section 204.401(1)(d). A jury trial date was set by the court but then continued by district court order. On October 21, a complaint was filed accusing Lange of failure to affix a drug tax stamp in violation of Iowa Code section 421A.12. This charge also arose from evidence secured in the April 1 search. On October 30, the State filed a motion to consolidate the manufacture and drug tax stamp charges. On November 6, the State filed a trial information against Lange charging him with failure to affix a drug tax stamp in violation of Iowa Code section 421A.12. At the November 15 hearing on the State's motion to consolidate, Lange resisted the motion because it was untimely, because there was no good cause for the State's delay in filing the tax stamp charge, and because Lange was willing to waive his right to a jury trial on the manufacture charge but not as to the tax stamp charge. Although the county attorney urged the State would have problems under Grady v. Corbin, 495 U.S. 508, 110 S.Ct. 2084, 109 L.Ed.2d 548 (1990), if the court refused to consolidate, district judge Joseph C. Keefe denied the State's motion to consolidate. On January 8, 1992, the manufacture charge was submitted to district judge James C. Bauch for trial to the court on the minutes of testimony contained in the trial information. On January 21, the court found Lange guilty as charged. The court also set the drug tax stamp charge for jury trial. On January 24, Lange moved to dismiss the drug tax stamp charge based on double jeopardy and prosecutorial delay. District judge Joseph Moothart dismissed the drug tax stamp charge as being in violation of the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The issue of prosecutorial delay was not addressed by the court in its ruling. The State now appeals to this court.