Court Opinion

ID: 9698313
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:47:34.394655+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:40.126850
License: Public Domain

UHLENHOPP, Justice
(dissenting).
We should adhere to the decision in State v. Everett, 157 N.W.2d 144 (Iowa). For over a century the statute has defined an included offense as one “necessarily included” in the one with which the accused is charged. Code, 1971, § 785.6; Code, 1851, § 3039. The long-standing and invariable rule of this court has accordingly been that the lesser offense must not only have been factually committed in the particular case, but the legal elements of the greater crime must necessarily include the legal elements of the lesser one. See e. g. State v. McCall, 245 Iowa 991, 998, 63 N.W.2d 874, 878 (“The language of the statute ‘necessarily included’ in the offense charged, is explicit and its meaning is clear. It is not enough that the evidence in some cases or in most cases would be sufficient to include the lesser offense.”). Here the second aspect is wanting; the legal elements of the greater offense do not necessarily include the legal elements of the lesser one, as Judge Stuart makes clear in the Everett case.
The judgment should be affirmed.
MASON, J., joins in this dissent.