# State v. Casady

> Supreme Court of Iowa · October 21, 1992 · 491 N.W.2d 782

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9526245

## Case

- **Full name:** STATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. William CASADY, Appellant
- **Court:** Supreme Court of Iowa
- **Decided:** October 21, 1992
- **Citations:** 491 N.W.2d 782; 1992 Iowa Sup. LEXIS 375; 1992 WL 296128
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by McGIVERIN
- **Judges:** Snell, McGiverin, Schultz, Neuman
- **Cited by:** 102 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9526245

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- noting that “a sexual comment made by the defendant to the victim, touching in a sexual way, the removal or request to remove clothing, or some other act during the commission of the crime” is enough to infer the defendant had the specific intent to commit sexual abuse
- stating intent may be established by circumstantial evidence and by inferences reasonably drawn from the conduct of the defendant and all attendant circumstances in the light of human behavior and experience
- finding the elapse of fifteen years and twelve 15 years—where the individual was incarcerated—was not too remote, and fifteen months after release was not too remote

## Opinion text

McGIVERIN, Chief Justice
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent from the majority opinion.
I cannot agree with division II and the result reached. The substantive evidence of defendant’s actions toward the victim is insufficient to support a charge of assault with the intent to commit sexual abuse. The majority uses evidence of defendant’s past bad acts to fill the admitted void in the evidence as to defendant’s intent in the present case. Thus, defendant’s conviction would be bottomed on defendant’s past bad acts and not on evidence of his intent in the present case, even though the general rule is that “ ‘one crime cannot be proved by proof of another.’ ” State v. Cott, 283 N.W.2d 324, 326 (Iowa 1979) (quoting State v. Schlak, 253 Iowa 113, 115 , 111 N.W.2d 289, 291 (1961)).
In the present case, defendant at most merely grabbed S.O.’s arms. Defendant did not make any sexual comment to S.O. or touch her in a sexual manner. We have previously held that
[an] overt act must reach far enough towards the accomplishment, toward the desired result, to amount to the commencement of the consummation, not. merely preparatory_ [I]t must approach sufficiently near it to stand either as the first or some subsequent step in a direct movement towards the commission of the offense after the preparations are made.
State v. Roby, 194 Iowa 1032, 1043 , 188 N.W. 709 , 714 (1922). Defendant’s acts in the present case did not go far enough to indicate a plan to engage in sexual activity with S.O.
The evidentiary record clearly supports a charge of assault, but not the one of which defendant was convicted.
SCHULTZ and NEUMAN, JJ., join this dissent.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9526245. Public record. Not legal advice.