State v. Hurlbut
| Decision Date | 11 February 2022 |
| Docket Number | 20-0630 |
| Citation | 970 N.W.2d 259 |
| Parties | STATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. Randall Lee HURLBUT, Appellant. |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
Martha J. Lucey, State Appellate Defender, and Stephan J. Japuntich, Assistant Appellant Defender, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Timothy M. Hau, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.
When the trial date for the misdemeanor defendant in this case finally arrived, he did not. The district court determined that the trial could proceed in his absence, and the jury found him guilty. In this appeal, we must decide whether a court may conduct a criminal trial on a misdemeanor criminal charge without the defendant present for any portion of the trial.
On a Thursday morning in August 2017, Randall Hurlbut called 911 several times to ask why the police were following him. The emergency dispatcher responded that, in fact, no officers had been assigned to follow him. But those brief calls didn't end the dispatcher's affairs with Hurlbut that day: other calls about the driver of a white Buick Roadmaster "squealing tires and just acting crazy" would put Hurlbut at their center.
Dillon Kunkel was at work in a mechanic's garage when Hurlbut's car came "flying" into the shop and slammed on its brakes. Kunkel had previously worked with Hurlbut and immediately recognized him. Hurlbut asked Kunkel and others assembled to "get the snowman off the top of his car." But Kunkel could offer no help, presumably because it was a clear day in August and no snowman actually resided atop Hurlbut's car. Undeterred, Hurlbut revved his engine and sped away. Kunkel called the police.
A Le Mars police officer soon found a white Roadmaster matching the caller's description in a nearby parking lot, but the car bolted as the police cruiser pulled in behind. The police officer watched as the Roadmaster sped between two cars heading opposite directions on a two-lane road, almost causing a crash. Now in pursuit with the cruiser's emergency flashers aglow, the police officer saw the Roadmaster race up a private driveway, through some pine trees in a yard, and toward a cornfield. Soon after blasting through a ditch and back onto the road, the Roadmaster circled back to the same parking lot from which the pursuit began and came to a stop. The police officer—familiar with Hurlbut from prior encounters and now approaching the car with a Taser in hand—ordered Hurlbut out of the car and to the ground. Hurlbut complied. When the police officer asked Hurlbut what he was doing, Hurlbut replied that he was trying to get someone off the roof of his car.
The police officer surmised that Hurlbut was under the influence of drugs. The officer had specialized training to recognize methamphetamine users and noted that Hurlbut had several indicia of methamphetamine abuse: the sunken-in face, the grinding teeth, the disheveled appearance, and the "off-the-wall" statements. He placed Hurlbut under arrest. During a drug recognition evaluation by another police officer soon after, Hurlbut cut off the assessment and said that he just wanted to give a urine sample. His sample tested positive for amphetamine and methamphetamine. The State charged Hurlbut with operating while intoxicated under Iowa Code section 321J.2 (2017), a serious misdemeanor.
The district court promptly appointed a lawyer to represent Hurlbut. But less than six weeks later, the lawyer moved to withdraw from the case, citing disagreements with Hurlbut about depositions and Hurlbut's complaints about the lawyer's efforts on the case. During the court hearing on the motion to withdraw, Hurlbut (incarcerated elsewhere for a different crime and participating by phone) eventually hung up and refused to participate. The State resisted the motion to withdraw, as trial was set for six days later, arguing Hurlbut is just "a difficult client and his personality will continue to be a problem for any counsel that's appointed." The court denied the motion.
Yet the day before trial was to begin, Hurlbut announced he would not come to trial. He again requested new counsel, and expanded on his arguments about why he couldn't get along with his appointed lawyer. The appointed lawyer, for his part, identified a different lawyer who was willing to represent Hurlbut, and even got Hurlbut to agree to the switch. The district court permitted the first lawyer to withdraw, appointed the new lawyer, and postponed the trial to give new counsel time to prepare. But the court warned that it would have no patience with Hurlbut if he took the same combative tack with his new lawyer.
At a hearing in January 2018 to set the trial date, Hurlbut requested that the court appoint him another new lawyer. Hurlbut said that he and his new lawyer disagreed on trial strategy and, in particular, that the lawyer wouldn't pursue Hurlbut's theory that the police tampered with his urine sample. Hurlbut also asked that the district court postpone his trial until after his release from prison. The lawyer assured the court that he was investigating Hurlbut's claims but said his interactions with Hurlbut involved a level of difficulty rarely experienced with other clients. The district court denied the request for new counsel and scheduled trial for August.
Five days before the trial date, Hurlbut's second lawyer filed a motion to withdraw as counsel, stating that the attorney–client relationship had deteriorated and that "the attorney has no control over the client and [the] client is not trusting of anything that the attorney utters." The district court granted the second lawyer's withdrawal motion. The court offered Hurlbut the names of three attorneys it might appoint to see if he would have an objection to any of them. Hurlbut had none.
At the same hearing, the judge asked Hurlbut about a new trial date. Hurlbut again requested that trial be postponed until after his release from jail: "It would work out better for anybody—everybody so they didn't have to transport me, and I could show up on my own." Hurlbut said he would be in favor of a March 2019 trial date.
The court appointed Hurlbut a third new attorney and set trial for March 12, 2019. At the ensuing pretrial conference shortly before his trial date, Hurlbut requested that the court revoke his bond and that he be arrested so the sheriff would transport him to trial from his home. But the court noted that Hurlbut had been released without bond and, as a result, there was no bond to revoke. The State thereafter moved to continue the trial for an unrelated reason, which Hurlbut did not resist, and the court again postponed the trial. The court reset trial for July 23, with a final pretrial conference on July 12. The order specified that Hurlbut must appear in person at the final pretrial conference.
Three days before the final pretrial conference, Hurlbut filed an application to remove his third lawyer, this time claiming a conflict of interest with the lawyer. On the date of the pretrial conference, at which the court was also to hear Hurlbut on his application to remove his lawyer, Hurlbut did not show. The court issued a warrant for his arrest, and again postponed the trial.
About five months later, in December, Hurlbut personally attended the rescheduled hearing on his application to remove his lawyer based on the alleged conflict. The court denied the application and set trial for February 4, 2020, with a pretrial conference set for January 31. The court told Hurlbut:
On the date of the pretrial conference, Hurlbut filed a motion to change the venue for his trial. He didn't appear for the pretrial conference. Nor did he appear for the hearing on his motion to change venue that the court held the day before trial. In the courtroom that day, Hurlbut's lawyer advised that Hurlbut had called his office and said that he planned on being there "tomorrow for the pretrial conference." But in fact, "tomorrow" was the date of the trial. The lawyer's secretary corrected Hurlbut that trial, not a pretrial conference, was the next day. His lawyer told the court that he believed Hurlbut planned to attend the trial. The court stated its plan to proceed with trial irrespective of whether Hurlbut in fact decided to appear.
At the first day of trial the next day, Hurlbut's lawyer informed the court that he'd personally spoken with Hurlbut after the court proceedings the day before, that Hurlbut claimed to have been mistaken about the schedule, and that Hurlbut claimed he could not find a ride to court to attend his trial. The lawyer requested a trial continuance. Hurlbut's lawyer argued that Hurlbut had not affirmatively waived his right to be present at trial and that Hurlbut's "constitutional protection regarding due process and the right to confront the accuser" required his presence.
The State argued that Hurlbut had been physically present at a hearing seven weeks before at which the court set his trial date and thus had ample notice of the trial date. The State further suggested that Hurlbut's absence was voluntary based on his statements to his lawyer: when Hurlbut understood it was the date of his pretrial conference, he planned on showing up, yet when he found out it was his trial date, he suddenly couldn't make it. The State stated its preference that the court issue a bench warrant for Hurlbut's arrest. But in response to Hurlbut's lawyer's request to continue the trial, the State steadfastly resisted, arguing that Hurlbut's "confusion" regarding the dates of trial and pretrial was "on his part, not that any change was made about which he had not been...
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