Court Opinion

ID: 9706189
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 01:33:43.257847+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:20.038133
License: Public Domain

LARSON, Justice
(concurring specially)
I concur in the result in this case, but I write separately to express my disagreement with the majority’s gratuitous statement that the State was not prevented by rule of criminal procedure 27(1) from refiling the misdemeanor charge. Rule 27(1) is clear: no misdemeanor charge below the aggravated level may be refiled once dismissed. Despite the majority’s characterization of the procedure to be used here as a reinstatement rather than a refiling, it is merely a cosmetic difference. The only way the State can “reinstate” the charge is by refiling it. Rule 27(1) does not provide, or even hint, that a defendant may waive the application of the rule by his own conduct. Nor does it provide any “good cause” exception such as found in our speedy trial rules. State v. Foy, 574 N.W.2d 337, 339 (Iowa 1998), relied on by the majority to support its dictum, is inap-posite; the conduct of the defendant in that case was held to relieve the State of its duty to abide by the plea agreement. Foy did not involve a head-on confrontation with a rule of criminal procedure.
NEUMAN, J., joins this special concurrence.