STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff-Appellee, vs. CURTIS EUGENE HARMS, Defendant-Appellant.
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IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 7-497 / 06-1703
Filed November 29, 2007
STATE OF IOWA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
vs.
CURTIS EUGENE HARMS,
Defendant-Appellant.
________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, Robert Hutchison,
Judge.
Curtis Harms appeals from his judgment and sentence for two counts of
first-degree theft. AFFIRMED.
Thomas Graves of Jackowski & Graves, L.L.P., Des Moines, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Karen Doland, Assistant Attorney
General, John P. Sarcone, County Attorney, Michael T. Hunter and John H.
Judisch, Assistant County Attorneys, for appellee.
Considered by Mahan, P.J., and Miller and Vaitheswaran, JJ.
2
VAITHESWARAN, J.
The State charged Curtis Harms with one count of first-degree theft. Iowa
Code §§ 714.1, 714.2(1) (2003). Harms pled guilty to second-degree theft. Id.
§§ 714.1, 714.2(2).
Prior to sentencing, Harms filed a motion in arrest of
judgment alleging his plea lacked a factual basis and he was denied effective
assistance of counsel. The district court granted his motion.
The State subsequently filed an amended trial information charging Harms
with ten counts of first-degree theft. Harms pled guilty to two of the counts. The
district court ordered his sentences served consecutively.
On appeal, Harms argues “trial counsel was ineffective in that he allowed
[him] to plead guilty despite the State’s violation of his right to speedy trial.”
Harms also maintains trial counsel was ineffective in filing a motion in arrest of
judgment with respect to his first plea. We preserve both ineffective-assistanceof-counsel claims to afford trial counsel an opportunity to respond.
State v.
Martinez, 679 N.W.2d 620, 626 (Iowa 2004).
Harms next takes issue with the district court’s sentence. He asserts the
court (1) did not state reasons for imposing consecutive prison terms and (2)
abused its discretion in declining to order concurrent rather than consecutive
terms.
The court must provide reasons for imposing consecutive sentences.
State v. Delaney, 526 N.W.2d 170, 178 (Iowa Ct. App. 1994) (citing State v.
Johnson, 445 N.W.2d 337, 343 (Iowa 1989)). Those reasons “are not required to
be specifically tied to the imposition of consecutive sentences, but may be found
from the particular reasons expressed for the overall sentencing plan.” Id.
3
After listening to Harms, the district court stated the following:
The Court has taken into consideration the defendant’s age;
his prior record of convictions, which is substantial; his employment
and family circumstances; the nature of the offense that was
committed here and the harm to the victim, the fact there was no
weapon or force involved in this offense; the defendant’s financial
circumstances; his need for rehabilitation and potential for that,
which I will say for the record I think is limited; the necessity of
protecting the community from further offenses by the defendant
and others; and the other factors that are set forth in the
presentence investigation report.
Mr. Harms, I was here and took your guilty plea and I have
listened to you today. It is apparent to me that you still don’t get it.
You still continue to deny responsibility for what’s happened here,
to say that you didn’t understand that what you were doing was
wrong . . . . This was a calculated scheme that went on for a long
period of time. It’s my judgment that you be sentenced to ten years
on each of these two offenses, [and] that they . . . run consecutive
to one another . . . .
It is clear from this summary that the sentencing reasons articulated by the court
applied to the decision to impose consecutive sentences as well as the overall
sentencing plan.
Cf. State v. Jacobs, 607 N.W.2d 679, 690 (Iowa 2000)
(concluding district court provided reasons for imposing sentence but not for
imposing consecutive sentences).
We turn to Harms’s assertion that the district court should have exercised
its discretion to impose concurrent sentences. The court declined this option
because of Harms’s continued unwillingness to take responsibility for his longterm illegal acts. The court’s statements do not reflect an abuse of discretion.
We affirm Harms’s judgment and sentence and preserve his ineffectiveassistance-of-counsel claims for postconviction relief.
AFFIRMED.
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