State v. Ash

• Decision Date: 25 January 2023
• Docket Number: 22-0012
• Parties: STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. EDWARD DEANDRE ASH, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Iowa Court of Appeals

STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
EDWARD DEANDRE ASH, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 22-0012

Court of Appeals of Iowa

January 25, 2023

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Linn County, Casey D. Jones (Discovery Ruling) and Russell G. Keast (Trial), District Associate Judges.

A defendant appeals his conviction of domestic abuse assault causing bodily injury. AFFIRMED.

Webb L. Wassmer of Wassmer Law Office, PLC, Marion, for appellant.

Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Thomas J. Ogden, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.

Considered by Bower, C.J., and Greer and Badding, JJ.

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BADDING, Judge.

Edward Ash was convicted of domestic abuse assault causing bodily injury after he head-butted his former girlfriend in the mouth. On appeal from that conviction, Ash claims the district court abused its discretion in denying his pretrial request for a subpoena to obtain the victim's mental-health records, the evidence is insufficient to support his conviction, and the verdict is contrary to the weight of the evidence. We affirm.

I. Background Facts and Proceedings^[1]

Ash and M.H. had been in a decade-long relationship when M.H. decided it would be best if they went their separate ways. In November or December 2020, M.H. told Ash her feelings-that she was not "invested in the relationship" anymore and wanted to move forward on her own. But they decided to keep living together until the lease on their apartment expired in May 2021. M.H. started sleeping alone in one of the bedrooms, and Ash slept in the living room.

On March 12, 2021, M.H. was just waking up around 9:00 a.m. because she did not have to go into work that day. While she was still in bed, looking at her cell phone and watching television, Ash came in and said: "I just want to know why you're being like this, why are you acting like this." He started cursing at her and asking why she was "acting like the B word." M.H. got up and told him, "I'm not doing this this morning." She tried to go to a different room, but Ash was standing in her way with his finger in her face, pushing her head back. She started to get upset and words were exchanged when, according to M.H., "out of nowhere he

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reared back and head-butted me in my face." M.H. fell back and "immediately felt pain in [her] mouth area."

Once she got up, M.H. reached for her cell phone off the bed. But Ash grabbed it instead and would not let her have it. M.H. gathered some of her things and then went to get her car keys to leave, but they were gone. She found Ash walking from the kitchen to the living room and saw her phone in his hand. She reached for it and asked for her keys, but Ash refused and kept "snatching [the phone] out of her reach as [she] was trying to get it." When M.H. made a last grab at her phone, Ash pushed her to the ground, and they started "tussling," with M.H. explaining: "He was holding me down as I was trying to reach up to grab my phone." M.H. got free after screaming for help. She left the home and sought assistance from neighbors, who called the police.

Officer Josh Marroquin of the Cedar Rapids Police Department was the first officer on the scene. When he arrived, he saw Ash standing in the street a couple of houses down from where they were called. Ash approached the officer, who asked him what had happened. Ash explained he got into an argument with M.H., "she ended up getting into his face, yelling at him and he ended up head-butting her in the face." Ash also said M.H. took a swing at him, "possibly hit or clipped his head," and took his debit card and other property. But Officer Marroquin did not see any injuries on Ash, and M.H. did not have any of Ash's property.

Officer Garry Idle arrived shortly after Officer Marroquin. When Officer Idle spoke with M.H., "[s]he was upset in regards to what had happened that morning." M.H. reported she had been head-butted and thought she had a loose tooth. After having M.H. lift her upper lip, Officer Idle observed "some swelling, bruising and

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redness." Pictures showed she had an abrasion on the inside of her lip. When Idle spoke with Ash, he confirmed "things had gotten physical between the two this morning," though by then, he was denying having head-butted M.H. According to both officers, Ash had M.H.'s cell phone and car keys on him when they arrived.

Ash testified on his own behalf. He explained that, on the morning he was arrested, he had wanted to go get something for breakfast but couldn't because his phone was gone. He asked M.H. for her phone so that he could try to find his by calling it from M.H.'s phone. Ash gave up looking after a few minutes and then went to get his debit card, identification, and keys. But those were missing too. M.H. got up to help Ash look for his missing items. While they were looking, Ash still had M.H.'s phone and saw a notification come through on it. So he began reading through her text messages. When M.H. noticed Ash scrolling through her phone, he said that "she got upset and she . . . runs toward me like, hey, you're looking through my phone." Ash continued:

So when she come towards me, I'm at the bottom step [to the living room]. She's at the top step. She stumbled. I duck . . . and when I did, I came up with my head.... That's when she tried to grab her phone. And when she's falling, the bottom of her mouth hit my head.

He agreed they then "tussle[d]" over the phone. But Ash denied ever pushing M.H. in the head with his finger, intentionally head-butting her, or pushing her to the ground. He also denied having M.H.'s car keys or cell phone when she left the house.

Ash was charged by trial information with domestic abuse assault causing bodily injury. Before trial, Ash applied for a subpoena for M.H.'s mental-health records so that the court could conduct an in camera review. In support of his

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application, Ash stated he believed that M.H.'s "mental health contributed to her behavior and statements made on or about March 12, 2021 ." The State resisted, arguing that Ash had not met the threshold requirements of Iowa Code section 622.10(4) (2021) for an in camera review of privileged records in a criminal case.

A hearing set for August 19 was continued to the next week "to allow the defendant time to attempt to try to find some specific records." At the hearing, the defense simply submitted that M.H. had been diagnosed with depression after visiting a hospital, for which she was prescribed citalopram hydrobromide; she did follow-up visits with a nurse practitioner; and she was later prescribed alprazolam. Based on that, the defense argued:

[W]e do believe at this point in time that we have shown that we know that there is mental health issues at play; that we know where this is at and we do believe at this point in time that based on looking at the-at the documents that the court could find exculpatory evidence that we would not be able to get without the court doing an in camera review.

In response, the State explained the referenced hospital visit was in 2009, and the alprazolam prescription was from a 2020 appointment, with no evidence she was "continuously being prescribed these medications."

The transcript shows the defense provided the court with some of M.H.'s medical records during the hearing.^[2] After reviewing those records, the court found "right off the chute things from 2009 or 2010 . . . are way too distant in time to have any relevant information in this case for possible exculpatory." The court then questioned the defense as to whether alprazolam was a medication for mental-

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health issues; the defense was not sure. So, assuming it was, the court found Ash failed to "advance some good faith factual basis indicating how the records are relevant to [his] innocence." In response to that conclusion, the defense contended: "[W]e're saying that the defendant is innocent . . . because of [M.H.'s] mental health issues that she gets herself worked up and she charges these things or goes after the defendant, saying that certain things happen when they did not." As its only example, the defense said that when...