Court Opinion

ID: 9670958
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:28:56.286152+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:07.447606
License: Public Domain

CARTER, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent.
The exceptions to the application of the statutory marital testimonial privilege have been determined by the legislature and made part of the statute which creates the privilege. Given this circumstance, no other exceptions should be recognized. In the present case, the parties were legally married at the time of the events to which the wife testified, a circumstance which permits the husband to claim the privilege when her testimony is subsequently offered against him.
The statute limits the “crimes against the other” exception contained in subparagraph (1) thereof to “a criminal prosecution for a crime committed one against the other.” The prosecution involved in the present case is for a crime committed against Kenneth Zea. Although it may be, as the majority suggests, that in the assault against Zea defendant simultaneously assaulted his wife, that circumstance does not satisfy the requirements of the statute that the testimony be offered in a prosecution for a crime against the wife.
Peters v. District Court of Iowa, 183 N.W.2d 209, 211-12 (Iowa 1971) does not support the enlargement of the “crimes against the other” exception which has been applied in the present case. Peters held that arson involving the wife’s property was a crime against the wife, however, the prosecution in which the testimony was offered in that case was for that crime. Here the prosecution is for a separate and distinct crime. The statutory exception to the privilege does not apply to the present situation. I would affirm the trial court.
LeGRAND and LARSON, JJ., join this dissent.