State v. Uthe

NEUMAN, Justice.

Defendant Stephen Uthe was convicted, following jury trial, of three counts of forgery in violation of Iowa Code section 715A.2 (1993). An habitual offender, he was sentenced to three consecutive prison terms of fifteen years each. See Iowa Code §§ 902.3, 902.8, 902.9(2). Uthe’s principal claim on appeal concerns the authentication of the exemplar used to compare his signature with the alleged forgeries. He also challenges the admissibility of “other crimes” evidence, the court’s failure to define “uttering” for the jury, the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the…