Court Opinion

ID: 9688850
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 18:09:09.040734+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:42.622405
License: Public Domain

REYNOLDSON, Justice
(dissenting).
The 1971 legislation relating to odometers pertinently provides:
“321.71 Odometer requirements.
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“(2) No person shall knowingly tamper with, adjust, alter, change, set back, disconnect or fail to connect the odometer of any motor vehicle, or cause any of the foregoing to occur to an odometer of a motor vehicle, so as to reflect a lower mileage than the true mileage driven by the motor vehicle.
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“(8) * * * the transferor of any motor vehicle * * * shall provide to the buyer a statement signed by the transfer- or which shall set forth the mileage on the odometer at the time of transfer and which shall state that to the transferor’s best knowledge the belief it is the true mileage. If the transferor has knowledge that the mileage shown on the odometer is not the true mileage traveled by the motor vehicle, he shall so indicate on the statement and he shall state the true mileage to his best knowledge and belief. * * *
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“(16) Any person who violates the provisions of this section shall be punished by a fine of not less than four hundred dollars and not more than one thousand dollars or by imprisonment in the county jail for a period not to exceed ninety days, or punished by both such fine and imprisonment.”
The legislative plan obviously was designed to punish an owner who in transfer-ing the vehicle falsified the required odometer statement where evidence of odometer tampering was non-existent. But for some inexplicable reason the State chose to ignore the offense on which it had overwhelming proof [§ 321.71(8)] to pursue a charge [§ 321.71(2)] for which there was not even proof of the corpus delicti.
I. This conviction must be reviewed with certain fundamental principles in mind.
Criminal statutes are strictly construed against the State, and the State has the burden of proving every element essential to constitute the crime charged. State v. Hansen, 244 Iowa 145, 147, 55 N.W.2d 923, 924 (1952); see State v. Banks, 213 N.W.2d 483, 485 (Iowa 1973).
The Due Process Clause protects an accused against conviction except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged. In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 364, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 1072, 25 L.Ed.2d 368, 375 (1970); State v. Vietor, 208 N.W.2d 894, 897 (Iowa 1973). Proof of an essential element of a charged crime may not be shifted to an accused. Stump v. Bennett, 398 F.2d 111 (8 Cir. 1968); cert. denied, 393 U.S. 1001, 89 S.Ct. 483, 21 L.Ed.2d 466 (1968); State v. Vietor, supra.
Basic to our criminal jurisprudence is the concept a conviction will stand only where the corpus delicti has been established— that the particular crime has actually been committed by someone. See Furgison v. State, 217 N.W.2d 613, 616 (Iowa 1974); State v. Dunn, 199 N.W.2d 104, 108-109 (Iowa 1972); State v. Cristani, 192 Iowa 615, 616-617, 185 N.W. 111, 112 (1921); State v. Millmeier, 102 Iowa 692, 698, 72 N.W. 275, 277 (1897).
*231Finally, in a criminal case where circumstantial evidence alone is relied on to prove any one or more of the essential elements of the crime the evidence must be entirely consistent with defendant’s guilt and wholly inconsistent with any rational hypothesis of defendant’s innocence and so convincing as to exclude a reasonable doubt that defendant was innocent of the offense charged. State v. Jellema, 206 N.W.2d 679, 681 (Iowa 1973); State v. Williams, 179 N.W.2d 756, 760 (Iowa 1970); State v. DeRaad, 164 N.W.2d 108, 110 (Iowa 1969).
II. Turning to the situation sub judice, it is apparent the State never established the corpus delicti: it never proved anyone knowingly (or even unknowingly) tampered with or changed the odometer on defendant’s vehicle. Assuming as a fact the odometer had a lower reading when defendant sold the vehicle than it had when he acquired it — a condition not entirely clear from the record — there is nothing to show this was not the result of a defect or malfunction or that the intervention of a person was necessary to produce a lower reading. There is total void in the evidence concerning this odometer, although the vehicle was apparently easily available as the State produced the then owner at trial.
I find no authority for taking judicial notice of the mechanical complexities of an odometer, nor does the State, below or here, request judicial notice to be taken.
The difficulty of sustaining the State’s position is apparent from its argument “no evidence appears in the record that would suggest a defect or malfunction occurred. Thus it must be inferred that such defect or malfunction did not occur.” Appellee’s brief, p. 11. This attempt to impose on defendant the burden to negate existence of the corpus delicti demonstrates the essential weakness of the State’s cause.
III. The majority opinion necessarily infers only a person could change the odometer, no defect or malfunction occurred, and because defendant was the vehicle owner he committed the offense. In an effort to bolster these dubious inferences the majority creates another inference unsupported by the evidence — that defendant made the alleged mileage misrepresentations to the buyer while the odometer stood at the higher reading, thus motivating defendant to then tamper with it. This resting of inference on inference is not only impermissible, State v. Leib, 198 Iowa 1315, 1322, 201 N.W. 29, 32 (1924), it attempts to create an unwarranted presumption arising out of vehicle ownership and endow it with more weight than the presumption of innocence. See State v. Priebe, 198 Iowa 609, 610, 199 N.W. 276, 277 (1924).
It is true the legislature infrequently creates permissible inferences applicable when certain facts are established, but these are subject to careful judicial scrutiny in light of guarantees of due process, trial by jury, the constitutional protection against being compelled to testify, the presumption of innocence, and the requirement of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. State v. Hansen, 203 N.W.2d 216 (Iowa 1972). Here the legislature made no attempt to create any inference. It avoided the problem the majority embraces by creating a separate offense tailored to meet the lack of any evidence the odometer was tampered with or manually changed.
I respectfully submit we should elect to exercise the legislature’s restraint, rather than rely on an unsupported dictum from an intermediate court in another jurisdiction to impliedly create inferences which test the parameters of historic constitutional safeguards.
I would reverse.