State v. Doe, 16-2087

• Citation: 903 N.W.2d 347
• Decision Date: 27 October 2017
• Docket Number: No. 16-2087,16-2087
• Parties: STATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. John DOE, Appellant.
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Iowa

903 N.W.2d 347

STATE of Iowa, Appellee,

v.John DOE, Appellant.

No. 16-2087

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Filed October 27, 2017

Amended November 15, 2017

Gina Messamer and Brandon Brown of Parrish Kruidenier Dunn Boles Gribble Gentry Brown & Bergmann L.L.P., Des Moines, for appellant.

Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Emily Willits and David M. Ranscht, Assistant Attorneys General, for appellee.

MANSFIELD, Justice.

I. Introduction.

What is a "criminal case"? Today, we are asked to answer this seemingly simple question in the context of Iowa's recently enacted expungement law. That law mandates expungement of the record when "[t]he criminal case contains one or more criminal charges in which an acquittal was entered for all criminal charges, or in which all criminal charges were otherwise dismissed." Iowa Code § 901C.2(1)(a)(1) (2017).

In 2011, the defendant in this case was charged with several aggravated misdemeanors in a multicount trial information. At approximately the same time, he was separately charged by criminal complaint with a simple misdemeanor. Later, the defendant reached an agreement to plead guilty to a lesser included offense of one count of the trial information. All other charges, including the simple misdemeanor criminal complaint, were dismissed.

In 2016, following enactment of the expungement law, the defendant sought expungement of the record of the dismissed simple-misdemeanor complaint. The State resisted. Both the magistrate and the district court denied relief. They reasoned that the misdemeanor was factually related to the offense to which the defendant had pled guilty in the trial information, and thus, both comprised a single criminal "case" within the meaning of section 901C.2(1)(a)(1).

On our review, we disagree. Although both sides advance reasonable interpretations of the law, we believe the defendant's view that "criminal case" as used in section 901C.2 refers to a single numbered legal proceeding is more sound for a number of reasons. Among other things, the defendant's position is consistent with our prior interpretations of the term in other contexts; it is supported by the legislative history; and it is easier to administer. Accordingly, we reverse the district court's judgment denying expungement and remand for further proceedings.

II. Facts and Procedural Background.

On the afternoon of May 21, 2011, L. informed Oskaloosa police that John Doe¹ had been in a physical altercation with her and had threatened her. L. also reported seeing a handgun in the center console of Doe's truck. Doe left the scene before police arrived. Based on a law enforcement bulletin, the Iowa State Patrol located Doe outside of his hometown of Ottumwa. At that time, he had two semiautomatic handguns in his vehicle, as well as prescription drugs in the name of another person.

Doe was arrested. Oskaloosa police filed criminal complaints on May 23 in Case No. AGIN****** accusing Doe of two counts of carrying weapons, one count of first-degree harassment, and two counts of unlawful possession of prescription drugs. See Iowa Code §§ 155A.21, .23; id.§ 708.7(2); id.§ 724.4(1) (2011). All of these are aggravated misdemeanors. Additionally, a separate criminal complaint was filed in Case No. SMSM****** accusing Doe of domestic abuse assault, a simple misdemeanor. See id. § 708.2A(2)(a). The charges were split into two legal proceedings because the domestic abuse assault charge, as a simple misdemeanor, was not an indictable offense.

On May 31, a trial information was approved and filed in Case No. AGIN****** charging Doe with two counts of carrying weapons, one count of first-degree harassment, and two counts of unlawful possession of prescription drugs. Doe waived speedy trial.

Several months later, Doe moved to sever the carrying weapons and prescription drug charges from the remaining charge in AGIN******. Doe maintained the weapons and drug charges arose out of the stop by the Iowa State Patrol, a separate incident from the earlier confrontation with L. The district court granted severance of the prescription drug charges but deferred ruling on severance of the carrying weapons charges, making that "subject to further motion by the defendant."

On March 5, 2012, pursuant to a plea agreement, Doe pled guilty to third-degree harassment, a lesser included offense of first-degree harassment. As part of the plea agreement, the unlawful possession of prescription drug charges, one of the carrying weapons charges, and the domestic abuse assault charges were dismissed. The State also entered into a deferred prosecution agreement as to the other carrying weapons charge. That charge was later dismissed.

On August 22, 2016, Doe moved for expungement of the record in SMSM*******, the simple misdemeanor proceeding in which he had previously been charged with domestic abuse assault. See Iowa Code § 901C.2 (2017). Doe maintained that this "case" had been dismissed and that the other statutory criteria for expungement had also been met. See id. The State resisted. On September 21, a magistrate judge denied Doe's motion. Doe appealed to the district court.

On November 8, the district court entered an order affirming the magistrate's denial of expungement. The court reasoned,

The indictable misdemeanors were filed by trial information in AGIN****** per Iowa Rule of Criminal Procedure 2.5. The simple misdemeanor domestic abuse assault charged in SMSM****** was charged by complaint and affidavit as required by Iowa Rule of Criminal Procedure 2.54. The simple misdemeanor could not have been added as a count in AGIN****** under the rules. This does not fail to make it part of the original "case." The lesser included harassment charge that the defendant pled guilty to and was convicted of in Count 2 of the trial information derives from the same set of circumstances as the charge in SMSM******, the May 21, 2011 threats and altercation at the storage facility in Mahaska County. They are part of the same case by definition. Therefore the requirement under Iowa Code Section 901C.1(2)(a)(1) that "all criminal charges were otherwise dismissed" has not been established by the defendant. The defendant is not eligible for expungement under Iowa Code.

Doe appealed to this court, and we retained the appeal.

III. Standard of Review.

"We review issues of statutory interpretation for correction of errors at law." Rhoades v. State, 848 N.W.2d 22, 26 (Iowa 2014).

IV. Analysis.

This case requires us to construe a recently enacted statute, Iowa Code section 901C.2. See 2015 Iowa Acts ch. 83, § 1 (adopting this provision); 2016 Acts ch. 1073, §§ 183–84, 188 (making clarifying amendments). Section 901C.2 provides in relevant part:

901C.2. Not-guilty verdicts and criminal-charge dismissals—expungement

1. a. Except as provided in paragraph "b", upon application of a defendant or a prosecutor in a criminal case, or upon the court's own motion in a criminal case, the court shall enter an order expunging the record of such criminal case if the court finds that the defendant has established that all of the following have occurred, as applicable:

(1) The criminal case contains one or more criminal charges in which an acquittal was entered for all criminal charges, or in which all criminal charges were otherwise dismissed.

(2) All court costs, fees, and other financial obligations ordered by the court or assessed by the clerk of the district court have been paid.

(3) A minimum of one hundred eighty days have passed since entry of the judgment of acquittal or of the order dismissing the case relating to all criminal charges, unless the court finds good cause to waive this requirement for reasons including but not limited to the fact that the defendant was the victim of identity theft or mistaken identity.

(4) The case was not dismissed due to the defendant being found not guilty by reason of insanity.

(5) The defendant was not found incompetent to stand trial in the case.

b. The court shall not enter an order expunging the record of a criminal case under paragraph "a" unless all the parties in the case have had time to object on the grounds that one or more of the relevant conditions in paragraph "a" have not been established.

2. The record in a criminal case expunged under this section is a confidential record exempt from public access under section 22.7 but shall be made available by the clerk of the district court, upon request and without court order, to the defendant or to an agency or person granted access to the deferred judgment docket under section 907.4, subsection 2.

....

7. This section shall apply to all relevant criminal cases that occurred prior to, on, or after January 1, 2016.

This statute was apparently enacted in response to our decision in Judicial Branch v. Iowa District Court, which held that existing Iowa laws did not require the removal of information relating to dismissed criminal cases from the courts' statewide computerized docket. See Judicial Branch v. Iowa District Court, 800 N.W.2d 569, 571 (Iowa 2011).

Iowa Code section 901C.2 sets forth five prerequisites to expungement of a criminal record. See Iowa Code § 901C.2(1)(a)(1)–(5). No one disputes that four of the five have been met. The dispute centers on whether the requirement in section 901C.2(1)(a)(1) has been met.

The statute is not a model of precise drafting. It says that the record of a case shall be expunged only if "an acquittal was entered for all criminal charges, or ... all criminal charges were otherwise dismissed." What if an acquittal was entered on some charges in a case and the remaining charges in that case were dismissed? Literally, that doesn't seem to meet the standard of section 901C.2(1)(a)(1). Yet everyone seems to agree expungement would be appropriate, assuming the other four criteria in section 901C.2(1)(a) were satisfied.

The fighting issue here is the meaning of "case" as used in Iowa Code section 901C.2. Is a case a particular numbered legal proceeding, as urged by Doe,...