State v. Reeves

• Decision Date: 08 October 2003
• Docket Number: No. 02-0199.,02-0199.
• Citation: 670 N.W.2d 199
• Parties: STATE of Iowa, Appellant, v. Valerie Lynn REEVES, Appellee.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

670 N.W.2d 199

STATE of Iowa, Appellant, v. Valerie Lynn REEVES, Appellee.

No. 02-0199.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

October 8, 2003.

Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Sheryl Soich and Kevin Cmelik, Assistant Attorneys General, and Michael E. Wolf, County Attorney, for appellant.

Jon M. Kinnamon, Cedar Rapids, for appellee.

LAVORATO, Chief Justice.

Following a remand from this court, the district court reversed Valerie Lynn Reeves' conviction for murder in the second degree and granted her a new trial. The State appealed and we transferred the case to the court of appeals, which reversed. We granted Reeves' application for further review. On our review, we vacate the court of appeals decision, affirm the judgment of the district court, and remand the case for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I. Procedural History.

A jury found Reeves guilty of second-degree murder. She appealed, contending that the district court applied the wrong standard when that court denied her motion for new trial. We transferred the case to the court of appeals. That court reversed and remanded the case to the district court with directions to apply the weight-of-the-evidence standard set out in State v. Ellis, 578 N.W.2d 655 (Iowa 1998).

On remand, the district court concluded that the weight of the credible evidence did not support the second-degree murder conviction and granted Reeves a new trial. The State appealed and we again transferred the case to the court of appeals. The court of appeals affirmed and the State filed an application for further review, which we granted. We concluded that on the issue of malice aforethought the district court erred by requiring proof of an opportunity to deliberate as a part of the inference arising from the use of a deadly weapon in second-degree murder. State v. Reeves, 636 N.W.2d 22, 26 (Iowa 2001) (Reeves I). We vacated the court of appeals decision and remanded the case for a new hearing on Reeves' motion for new trial. Id.

On the second remand, the district court again concluded that the weight of the evidence did not support the jury's verdict and granted Reeves a new trial. However, this time the court's ruling was based on an analysis different from its analysis in the first remand.

The State appealed and we again transferred the case to the court of appeals. That court in a 2 to 1 decision concluded the district court abused its discretion in granting Reeves a new trial. The court reversed and remanded the case with directions to reinstate the jury verdict of second-degree murder. Reeves filed an application for further review, challenging the court of appeals decision. We granted the application and the case is now before us.

II. Applicable Law.

To aid our analysis, we think it would be helpful to review the principles we laid out in Ellis. Iowa Rule of Criminal Procedure 2.24(2)(b) (6) permits the trial court to grant a new trial "[w]hen the verdict is contrary to law or evidence." In Ellis we held that "contrary to ... evidence" in this rule means "contrary to the weight of the evidence." Ellis, 578 N.W.2d at 659. In Ellis, we took our cue from Tibbs v. Florida, 457 U.S. 31, 102 S.Ct. 2211, 72 L.Ed.2d 652 (1982). In Tibbs, the Court held that double jeopardy does not bar retrial after a state appellate court sets aside a conviction because the verdict was against the weight of the evidence. Tibbs, 457 U.S. at 32, 102 S.Ct. at 2213, 72 L.Ed.2d at 655.

In Tibbs, the court noted the general rule that a defendant who successfully appeals a conviction was subject to retrial. Id. at 39-40, 102 S.Ct. at 2217, 72 L.Ed.2d at 660. The Court also noted this narrow exception: Double jeopardy precludes retrial of a defendant who successfully appeals a conviction "once the reviewing court has found the evidence legally insufficient" to support a conviction. Id. at 40-41, 102 S.Ct. at 2217, 72 L.Ed.2d at 660 (citation omitted). This standard, the Court said, means "that the government's case was so lacking that it should not have been submitted to the jury." Id. at 41, 102 S.Ct. at 2217, 72 L.Ed.2d at 660 (citation omitted). Additionally, the Court noted that "[a] conviction will survive review ... whenever `the evidence and inferences therefrom most favorable to the prosecution would warrant the jury's finding the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.'" Id. (citation omitted). In Ellis, we concluded "[t]hese meanings of `insufficiency of the evidence' accord with our own view of the standard." 578 N.W.2d at 658.

In Ellis, we recognized that Tibbs makes clear "there is a serious double jeopardy consequence that demands a distinction between the [sufficiency-of-the-evidence standard and the weight-of-the-evidence standard]...." Id. at 659. For that reason, we held that "contrary to ... evidence" in rule [2.24(2)(b)(6)] means "contrary to the weight of the evidence" as defined in Tibbs. Id.

Tibbs contrasted an evidentiary review based on the weight and the sufficiency of the evidence:

[A] conviction rests upon insufficient evidence when, even after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, no rational factfinder could have found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. A reversal based on the weight of the evidence, on the other hand, draws the appellate court into questions of credibility. The "weight of the evidence" refers to "a determination [by] the trier of fact that a greater amount of credible evidence supports one side of an issue or cause than the other."

Tibbs, 457 U.S. at 37-38, 102 S.Ct. at 2216, 72 L.Ed.2d at 658 (citations omitted).

In Ellis, we noted that federal courts apply the Tibbs weight-of-the-evidence standard on motions for new trial under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 33, which allows a new trial if "the interests of justice so require." Ellis, 578 N.W.2d at 658. We quoted with approval this passage from one commentator as to when and why trial courts must use a sufficiency-of-the-evidence standard or a weight-of-the-evidence standard:

On a motion for judgment of acquittal, the court is required to approach the evidence from a standpoint most favorable to the government, and to assume the truth of the evidence offered by the prosecution. If on this basis there is substantial evidence justifying an inference of guilt, the motion for acquittal must be denied.

On a motion for new trial, however, the power of the court is much broader. It may weigh the evidence and consider the credibility of witnesses. If the court reaches the conclusion that the verdict is contrary to the weight of the evidence and that a miscarriage of justice may have resulted, the verdict may be set aside and a new trial granted.

... The motion [for new trial] is addressed to the discretion of the court, which should be exercised with caution, and the power to grant a new trial on this ground should be invoked only in exceptional cases in which the evidence preponderates heavily against the verdict.

Id. at 658-59 (quoting 3 Charles A. Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure § 553, at 245-48 (2d ed. 1982)).

As one court explained:

A motion for new trial on the grounds that the verdict is contrary to the weight of the evidence, concedes that there is sufficient evidence to sustain a verdict. Thus, the trial court is under no obligation to view the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict winner.

Commonwealth v. Widmer, 560 Pa. 308, 744 A.2d 745, 751 (2000).

III. Scope of Review.

The district court has broad discretion in ruling on a motion for new trial. State v. Atley, 564 N.W.2d 817, 821 (Iowa 1997); see also Iowa R.App. P. 6.14(6)(c) ("In ruling upon motions for new trial the district court has a broad but not unlimited discretion in determining whether the verdict effectuates substantial justice between the parties."). We reverse where the district court has abused that discretion. To establish such abuse, the State must show that the district court exercised its discretion on grounds or for reasons clearly untenable or to an extent clearly unreasonable. Id. We are slower to interfere with the grant of a new trial than with its denial. Iowa R.App. P. 6.14(6)(d).

On a weight-of-the-evidence claim, appellate review is limited to a review of the exercise of discretion by the trial court, not of the underlying question of whether the verdict is against the weight of the evidence. Widmer, 744 A.2d at 753; see also United States v. Ashworth, 836 F.2d 260, 266 (6th Cir.1988)

(appellate court neither sits to judge credibility of witnesses nor to reweigh the evidence; rather appellate court is limited to examining the evidence produced at trial to determine whether the district court's determination that the evidence does or does not "preponderate heavily against the verdict" is a clear and manifest abuse of discretion).

The standard we apply in determining whether the district court has abused its discretion in granting a new trial on a weight-of-the-evidence claim was aptly stated by one court in this passage:

The discretion of the trial court should be exercised in all cases in the interest of justice, and, where it appears to the judge that the verdict is against the weight of the evidence, it is his imperative duty to set it aside. "We do not mean ... that he is to substitute his own judgment in all cases for the judgment of the jury, for it is their province to settle questions of fact; and, when the evidence is nearly balanced, or is such that different minds would naturally and fairly come to different conclusions thereon, he has no right to disturb the findings of the jury, although his own judgment might incline him the other way. In other words, the finding of the jury is to be upheld by him as against any mere doubts of its correctness. But when his judgment tells him that it is wrong, that, whether from mistake, or prejudice, or other cause, the jury ... erred, and found against the fair preponderance

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