Court Opinion

ID: 9673605
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 04:15:02.219069+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:23.005466
License: Public Domain

Rawlings, J.
I concur in the result, but cannot agree with the construction which has heretofore been and is now being given section 321.489, Code, 1962. In Hackett v. Freeman & Graves, 103 Iowa 296, 299, 72 N.W. 528, we said:
“The word ‘conviction’, as applied to criminal offenses, has different meanings. A man may be self-convicted by confession, or he may be convicted by the verdict of a jury before judgment. Thus, in Commonwealth v. Lockwood, 109 Mass. 325, it is said: ‘The ordinary legal meaning of “conviction”, when used to designate a particular stage of a criminal prosecution triable by a jury, is the confession of the accused in open court, or the verdict returned against him by the jury, which ascertains and. publishes the fact of his guilt, while “judgment” or “sentence” is the appropriate word to denote the action of the court before which the trial is had, declaring the consequences to the convict of the fact thus ascertained.’ ”
In other words a “conviction" is had either by entry of a plea of guilty or when a guilty verdict is returned. To me section 321.489 says what it means and means what it says. With this in mind I would follow what is to me the more realistic rule set forth in Warren v. Marsh, 215 Minn. 615, 11 N.W.2d 528. See also Ripple v. Brack, 132 Colo. 125, 286 P.2d 625; Utah Farm Bureau Ins. Co. v. Chugg, 6 Utah2d 399, 315 P.2d 277; Jones v. Talbot, 87 Idaho 498, 394 P.2d 316, and 31A C. J. S., Evidence, section 300(b), page 769.