State v. Coleman

• Decision Date: 02 February 2018
• Docket Number: No. 16-0900,16-0900
• Citation: 907 N.W.2d 124
• Parties: STATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. James Michael COLEMAN, Appellant.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

907 N.W.2d 124

STATE of Iowa, Appellee,

v.James Michael COLEMAN, Appellant.

No. 16-0900

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Filed February 2, 2018

Mark C. Smith, State Appellate Defender, and Vidhya K. Reddy, Assistant Appellate Defender, for appellant.

Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Louis S. Sloven, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.

ZAGER, Justice.

A defendant convicted of failure to comply with the sex offender registry under Iowa Code sections 692A.104 and 692A.105 (2015) appeals his conviction. The defendant argues the district court incorrectly interpreted Iowa Code section 692A.105. The district court read the statute’s five-business-day period for notification to require an offender to make this notification within five business days of changing to temporary lodgings. The defendant claims the statute requires the offender to make notification within five business days of being away from the offender’s registered principal place of residence for more than five days. The defendant claims the district court therefore incorrectly instructed the jury on the applicable law. He also maintains that he was denied a fair trial due to prosecutorial misconduct and was denied effective assistance of counsel. Finally, he alleges the district court erred in assessing appellate attorney fees against him without determining his reasonable ability to pay them. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm the conviction. However, we vacate the sentence and remand to the district court for resentencing consistent with this opinion.

I. Background Facts and Proceedings.

In August 2015, James Coleman was a registered sex offender in Black Hawk County. Coleman listed his principal place of residence as his parents’ home in Waterloo where he lived with his parents and an adult sister. As a registered sex offender, Coleman was required to provide information and notify the sheriff within five business days of certain triggering events defined in the statute. Coleman was also subject to electronic GPS monitoring with an ankle bracelet¹ and had curfew obligations as conditions of his probation. On August 15, the battery of Coleman’s ankle bracelet was running low, and his probation officer, Todd Harrington, contacted Coleman and spoke with him to resolve the issue. Harrington could not recall whether he called Coleman at the landline belonging to Coleman’s parents or another phone number. Harrington was reassigned soon after, and Mark Blatz replaced him as Coleman’s probation officer.

On August 25, Blatz tried and failed to make contact with Coleman through the landline telephone. Blatz left Coleman a telephone message. Blatz tried calling Coleman again the next day and was still unable to reach him. After failing to reach Coleman over the phone, Blatz went to Coleman’s registered place of residence on August 26 and spoke with Coleman’s father, Michael Coleman (Michael). Michael told Blatz that Coleman was not present. Blatz then contacted law enforcement for help tracking Coleman down.

On August 27, Sergeant Steve Peterson and DCI Agent Jack Liao went to Coleman’s residence and spoke with Michael. Michael told the officers that he had been out-of-state with his wife for about a week, and he had not seen Coleman since he returned on August 16 or 17. At trial, Michael clarified during his testimony that it was August 17. Michael told the officers that it was "very abnormal for [Coleman] to be gone for so long without having any communication with his [father]." There were voicemails left on the answering machine in Michael’s house for Coleman, and Michael allowed officers to listen to them. One of the messages was for Coleman from a woman who indicated she was waiting for Coleman at Motel 6.

The officers then went to Motel 6 in Waterloo looking for Coleman or the woman who had left the message. The officers divided their search for Coleman with Peterson speaking with motel management to identify the woman from the message, while Liao talked with other people in the motel. Liao spoke with a motel employee who indicated that Coleman had stopped by Motel 6 on the previous day—August 26—and ended up staying in the motel employee’s room at the motel. The officers found Coleman in the employee’s motel room, along with the charger for his GPS monitor that had been missing from his house. When the officers asked Coleman about where he had been, Coleman told them he had just returned from the Cedar Rapids area. Between August 17 and August 27, Coleman never met with the sex offender registrar of the Black Hawk County sheriff’s office to provide any notification regarding his location. The officers arrested Coleman for probation violation and added an additional charge for a sex offender registry violation later that day.

On August 28, Coleman asked to speak with Peterson and Liao while he was in jail. Coleman told the officers that his disappearance was not voluntary and that people who were trying to collect a debt they believed Coleman owed them had taken him against his will to locations in Cedar Rapids, Hiawatha, and Marion. The conversation between the officers and Coleman never specified when Coleman was gone or if the disappearance was for a continuous period. The officers were unable to corroborate any part of Coleman’s story.

On October 5, the State charged Coleman with a violation of Iowa Code sections 692A.104 and 692A.105 for his failure to comply with the sex offender registry. The State alleged that the registration violation was a second offense that resulted in enhancement to a class "D" felony under Iowa Code section 692A.111, and it later amended the charge to add a habitual offender enhancement under Iowa Code sections 902.8 and 902.9. The underlying registry violation was severed for trial purposes from the enhancement proceedings.

On March 10, 2016, a jury convicted Coleman of failure to comply with the sex offender registry requirements under Iowa Code sections 692A.104 and 692A.105. On March 21, Coleman stipulated to the second offense and habitual offender enhancements pursuant to a plea agreement. Coleman’s sentence in the pending case was to run concurrent with the sentence imposed in a separately pending probation violation matter. The district court accepted Coleman’s stipulation, and it later imposed judgment against Coleman for second offense failure to comply with the sex offender registry, a class "D" felony, committed as a habitual offender, in violation of Iowa Code sections 692A.104, 692A.105, 692A.111, 902.8, and 902.9. The district court imposed an indeterminate term of incarceration not to exceed fifteen years with a mandatory minimum of three years in prison. The district court suspended this sentence and placed Coleman on probation with the special condition that he reside at a residential treatment facility for one year or until he achieved the maximum benefits of treatment. Though the district court ordered Coleman to pay court costs, it found he was not reasonably able to reimburse the State for court-appointed attorney fees. Later, the district court revoked Coleman’s suspended sentence and imposed the original sentence. The district court also found Coleman was not reasonably able to pay the court-appointed attorney fees and expenses connected to his probation revocation matter. Coleman timely filed a notice of appeal, and we retained the appeal.

II. Standard of Review.

"We review sufficiency-of-the-evidence challenges for corrections of errors at law." State v. Schlitter , 881 N.W.2d 380, 388 (Iowa 2016). Our standard of review for rulings on questions of statutory interpretation is also for correction of errors at law. State v. Iowa Dist. Ct. , 889 N.W.2d 467, 470 (Iowa 2017). We likewise review challenges to jury instructions for correction of errors at law. State v. Hanes , 790 N.W.2d 545, 548 (Iowa 2010). "We do not consider an erroneous jury instruction in isolation, but look at the jury instructions as a whole." State v. Murray , 796 N.W.2d 907, 908 (Iowa 2011).

We review claims of ineffective assistance of counsel de novo. Schlitter , 881 N.W.2d at 388. Our standard of review for constitutional issues is also de novo. State v. Dudley , 766 N.W.2d 606, 612 (Iowa 2009). We review a district court’s decision on claims of prosecutorial misconduct for abuse of discretion, which occurs when "a court acts on grounds clearly untenable or to an extent clearly unreasonable." State v. Krogmann , 804 N.W.2d 518, 523 (Iowa 2011) (quoting State v. Leckington , 713 N.W.2d 208, 216 (Iowa 2006) ). Further, "[o]ur review of a restitution order is for correction of errors at law." State v. Klawonn , 688 N.W.2d 271, 274 (Iowa 2004).

III. Analysis.

Coleman presents a number of challenges on direct appeal. First, Coleman claims the evidence was insufficient to establish that he failed to notify the sheriff "within five business days" under Iowa Code section 692A.105. More specifically, Coleman disputes the interpretation of Iowa Code section 692A.105 that the State presented to the jury requiring an offender to notify the sheriff within five business days of changing to temporary lodgings. Coleman proposes that the statute should be read to require notification within five business days after the sex offender has already been away from his or her principal residence for more than five days. Second, Coleman argues the marshaling instructions presented to the jury did not convey the applicable law. Third, he maintains he was denied a fair trial due to prosecutorial misconduct. Fourth, Coleman presents a variety of ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims based on his trial counsel’s decision not to object to certain prosecutorial statements, as well as counsel’s decisions not to challenge certain jury instructions, the vagueness of the statute, and certain aspects of Coleman’s stipulations to the sentencing enhancements. Finally, Coleman alleges that the sentencing court erred when its sentencing order stated Coleman would be...