State v. Taylor

• Decision Date: 19 November 2004
• Docket Number: No. 02-1268.,02-1268.
• Citation: 689 N.W.2d 116
• Parties: STATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. Nathaniel TAYLOR, Appellant.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

689 N.W.2d 116

STATE of Iowa, Appellee, v. Nathaniel TAYLOR, Appellant.

No. 02-1268.

Supreme Court of Iowa.

November 19, 2004.

Alfredo G. Parrish and Andrew Dunn of Parrish, Kruidenier, Moss, Dunn, Boles & Gribble, L.L.P., Des Moines, for appellant.

Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Kristin A. Guddall, Assistant Attorney General, Stephen H. Holmes, County Attorney, and Timothy C. Meals, Assistant County Attorney, for appellee.

TERNUS, Justice.

The defendant, Nathaniel Taylor, seeks further review of the court of appeals' decision affirming his convictions for domestic abuse assault causing bodily injury and first-degree burglary. In addition to asserting various ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims, he challenges certain evidentiary rulings by the trial court, the sufficiency of the evidence, and the district court's refusal to grant a new trial on the assault and burglary charges. Although we concur in the court of appeals' determination that the defendant's convictions should be affirmed, we disagree slightly with that court's disposition of the defendant's ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims. Accordingly we vacate the decision of the court of appeals and affirm the judgment of the district court.

I. Background Facts and Proceedings.

Viewed in the light most favorable to the trial court's ruling, the record shows the following facts. Prior to the incident giving rise to the present charges, Taylor's wife, Susan Taylor, had obtained a temporary protective order prohibiting contact between her and the defendant as well as between the defendant and the Taylors' two young children. Three days after issuance of this order, on December 2, 2001, Susan and the children attended Sunday evening church services with Susan's friend, Michelle Vincent. As they were leaving the church parking lot in Vincent's minivan, they saw Taylor drive by. After following Taylor for a short distance to determine the direction in which he was headed, Vincent pulled back into the parking lot and called the police on her cell phone. The defendant followed Vincent into the church parking lot, got out of his car, and began pounding on Vincent's vehicle, yelling "I just want five f* * *ing minutes, you f* * *ing bitch." Susan began crying and screaming for Vincent to drive away. When Vincent attempted to do so, Taylor jumped back into his vehicle and tried to ram Vincent's van. Eventually, Vincent's vehicle became wedged between some parked cars and Taylor's car.

The defendant again got out of his vehicle and began pounding on Vincent's van, yelling angrily and using profane language as he had before. When Vincent tried to move her van, the defendant jumped on the hood and began hitting the windshield, causing the glass to crack. Vincent was finally able to maneuver around the parked cars and that caused Taylor to fall off the hood of the van. He then approached the passenger side window where Susan was seated and began pounding on the window, eventually causing it to shatter. Susan and the children were screaming, and one of the children begged Taylor to go away. Notwithstanding these pleas, Taylor reached into the van and yanked his wife, who was then five months pregnant, out through the broken window.¹ He encountered some difficulty in doing so, as she was strapped in her seat belt and her feet became entangled in the belt.

Once Taylor had extricated Susan from the van, he threw her over his shoulder, took her to his car, and shoved her into the front passenger seat. He then quickly drove over the church lawn, through a ditch, and up onto the highway. As they drove, Susan agreed to talk with the defendant about their marital problems. Taylor ultimately parked behind some nearby storage buildings where his vehicle could not be seen from the street. The police were unsuccessful in locating the defendant or his car.

In the end, Taylor and Susan walked to the police station, and Taylor turned himself in for violating the no-contact order. Susan was still frightened and upset. She began to write a statement for the police, but stopped because she was afraid of her husband.

Vincent took Susan to the emergency room that night, where Susan was examined by a physician. Susan told the doctor she had been pulled out through a car window while she was still wearing her seat belt. The physician believed the risk to Susan's unborn child was significant enough that the doctor transferred Susan to the obstetrics unit of the hospital for fetal monitoring. No problems were detected, and Susan was released after a few hours. The next day, Susan was stiff and sore. She also had small bruises on her right scapula and across her chest, as well as some scratches on her neck. The emergency room doctor confirmed at trial that the marks on Susan's shoulder and chest were consistent with being pulled out of a fastened seat belt.

In addition to Susan's injuries, the defendant caused damage to Vincent's van in excess of $1440. He broke out the passenger-side window, broke the passenger-side seat belt, dented the fender, and cracked the windshield.

Taylor was charged with third-degree kidnapping, domestic abuse assault causing bodily injury, first-degree burglary, second-degree criminal mischief, and assault while participating in a felony. He waived a jury trial, and Judge Carl D. Baker found him guilty of domestic abuse assault causing bodily injury, first-degree burglary, and second-degree criminal mischief. The defendant was found not guilty of the kidnapping and assault-while-participating-in-a-felony charges.²

After Judge Baker recused himself for reasons not pertinent to this appeal, Judge John S. Mackey ruled on Taylor's posttrial motions. Judge Mackey vacated the criminal mischief conviction, see Iowa R.Crim. P. 2.24(2)(b)(6), (c), but refused to grant relief on the other guilty verdicts. Taylor was subsequently given an indeterminate twenty-five year sentence on the burglary conviction and was sentenced to time served on the domestic abuse assault conviction.

Taylor appealed, and the State sought discretionary review of the posttrial ruling vacating the criminal mischief conviction. Upon transfer to the court of appeals, that court affirmed on the appeal and denied the State's application for discretionary review. This court granted the defendant's application for further review. We will address the following issues: (1) the trial court's admission of evidence concerning Taylor's prior bad acts; (2) the sufficiency of the evidence to support the assault and burglary convictions; (3) the district court's refusal to grant a new trial on the assault and burglary charges; and (4) the defendant's claim that he received ineffective assistance from his trial counsel.

II. Admissibility of Prior Bad Acts.

A. Trial court proceedings and challenged evidence. Over the defendant's objection, the trial court admitted the petition for relief from domestic abuse filed by Susan Taylor on November 29, 2001, detailing two prior abusive incidents between the defendant and his wife. Susan wrote in her application that in late September,

He [Taylor] was upset with me ... and as I was holding our daughter and being 2½ months pregnant he pushed me into the living room door and I fell to the hardwood floor. My daughter & I were screaming as our son ran to the neighbors to get help. He tried to take both children out of the house. My daughter & I ran outside & ran to the neighbors.

In addition, she described another incident that occurred in October:

He [Taylor] was upset because I wasn't home when he wanted me to be. He punched a hole into the kitchen to unlock the door. When I returned ... he was very angry. He had the gun laying on the dining room table and bullets. He was telling me to get the kids to bed and that he wanted me out in the garage to kill me.

The court also admitted the temporary protective order issued as a result of these allegations.

The prosecutor was permitted to question Susan at trial concerning the statements she made in the application. Susan did not dispute that either incident occurred, but claimed the defendant had not threatened to kill her in October. She testified that she meant to write on the petition that her husband wanted to kill himself, not her. Similarly, the defendant admitted at trial that these incidents had occurred but contended he had threatened to kill himself, not his wife, in the October confrontation.³

The court admitted this evidence on the issue of intent, which the court noted was "a hotly-contested issue" in the case. Taylor asserts on appeal that the evidence of his prior assaultive conduct was inadmissible under Iowa Rule of Evidence 5.404(b).⁴ Compare State v. Sullivan, 679 N.W.2d 19, 27-28 (Iowa 2004) (cautioning against indiscriminate introduction of prior-bad-acts evidence to prove mens rea), with State v. White, 668 N.W.2d 850, 855 (Iowa 2003) (allowing prior incident of domestic abuse to prove intent element of kidnapping and burglary involving the same victim), and State v. Rodriquez, 636 N.W.2d 234, 242 (Iowa 2001) (allowing evidence of prior assaults against same victim on confinement element of kidnapping charge and on intent-to-cause-serious-injury element of willful injury and kidnapping charges).

B. Governing legal principles. The rules of evidence provide the framework for our analysis of this issue. In general, relevant evidence is admissible and irrelevant evidence is not admissible. See Iowa R. Evid. 5.402. Relevant evidence is evidence "having any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence." Iowa R. Evid. 5.401. Even when evidence is relevant, it "may be excluded if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice." Iowa R. Evid. 5.403.

Rule 5.404(b) sets forth a specific rule governing the admissibility of a...