STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff - Appellant , vs. REBECCA ANN TRAINER , Defenda nt - Appell ee .
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IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 8-671 / 07-2069
Filed December 17, 2008
STATE OF IOWA,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
vs.
REBECCA ANN TRAINER,
Defendant-Appellee.
________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Floyd County, Paul W. Riffel,
Judge.
The State appeals from the district court‟s order dismissing a seconddegree burglary charge against the defendant. REVERSED AND REMANDED.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Cristen Douglass, Assistant Attorney
General, Jesse Marzen, County Attorney, for appellant.
Mark C. Smith, State Appellate Defender, and Martha Lucey, Assistant
Appellate Defender, for appellee.
Heard by Vogel, P.J., and Mahan and Miller, JJ.
2
VOGEL, P.J.
The State appeals from the district court‟s dismissal of a second-degree
burglary charge against Rebecca Trainer.
The State asserts that although
judgment had been entered on Trainer‟s guilty plea to a lesser offense of
misdemeanor trespass, double jeopardy did not require the dismissal of the
greater charge. As we agree with the State, we reverse and remand for further
proceedings.
I. Procedural History
On July 5, 2007, Trainer was involved in an incident, which resulted in her
arrest.
She was initially cited by the arresting officer for trespass, a simple
misdemeanor, in violation of Iowa Code section 716.7 (2007). She was also
charged with four counts of first-degree harassment, each an aggravated
misdemeanor, in violation of Iowa Code section 708.7(2). Trainer applied for and
was appointed counsel. On July 6, 2007, Trainer made her initial appearance
before a magistrate judge and pled not guilty to the trespass charge. Trial was
set for the “last Tuesday of January 2008.”
On July 24, 2007, in lieu of a preliminary hearing, the State, through the
county attorney, charged Trainer by trial information with four counts of firstdegree harassment in violation of Iowa Code sections 708.7(1)(b)1 and 708.7(2),
1
Trainer was originally charged with first-degree harassment in violation of Iowa Code
sections 708.7(1)(a)(1) and 708.7(2). The district court determined that the code
sections under which Trainer had been charged were incorrect. Thus, the trial
information was amended to charge Trainer with four counts of first-degree harassment
under Iowa Code sections 708.7(1)(b) and 708.7(2).
3
and second-degree burglary in violation of Iowa Code sections 713.1 and
713.5(2).2 The State did not dismiss the pending citation for trespass.
On August 6, 2007, Trainer moved to dismiss the four counts of
harassment, or in the alternative to combine the four counts into one count. On
August 13, 2007, commencing at 2:13 p.m., a hearing was held on Trainer‟s
motion. Shortly thereafter, at 2:48 p.m., Trainer filed a written guilty plea to the
misdemeanor trespass charge stemming from the citation. The proof of service
indicated a copy of the plea was then provided to the county attorney through the
courthouse mail system. On August 15, 2007, Trainer‟s defense counsel took
the court file to the magistrate for entry of judgment and sentence on the guilty
plea. Trainer was sentenced on the trespass charge and ordered to pay a sixtyfive dollar fine, plus surcharge, court costs, and attorney‟s fees. The judgment
and sentencing order was then filed at 8:54 a.m., noting a copy was to be given
to the county attorney.
Apparently yet unaware of the magistrate‟s entry of
judgment and sentence, at 11:00 a.m. the State filed a resistance to the guilty
plea on the trespass citation. The State asserted that because the trespass
charge was a lesser-included offense of the burglary charge, “substantial
injustice” would occur if the court accepted Trainer‟s plea. On August 17, 2007,
Trainer filed a response to the State‟s resistance, asserting the resistance was
moot as judgment had already been entered and sentence imposed. She further
2
Iowa Rule of Criminal Procedure 2.33(2)(a) states:
When an adult is arrested for a commission of a public offense . . . and an
indictment is not found against the defendant within 45 days, the court
must order the prosecution to be dismissed, unless good cause to the
contrary is shown or the defendant waives the defendant‟s right thereto.
4
asserted the State could have, but failed to, dismiss the trespass charge when
the second-degree burglary charge was included in the trial information.
On August 20, 2007, Trainer was arraigned in district court on the four
counts of harassment and the burglary charge. That same day, the district court
ordered that the four counts of harassment be combined into one count. On
August 23, 2007, the trial information was amended to one count of first-degree
harassment and one count of second-degree burglary.
On August 31, 2007, after a hearing, the magistrate denied the State‟s
resistance to Trainer‟s guilty plea on the trespass citation. Subsequently, Trainer
moved to dismiss the burglary charge, asserting it was barred on double
jeopardy grounds.
On November 5, 2007, the district court dismissed the
burglary charge finding that trespass is a lesser-included offense of seconddegree burglary and thus, prosecution of the burglary charge was barred on
principles of double jeopardy.
The State appeals asserting that the burglary
charge should not have been dismissed.
II. Scope of Review
Our review of constitutional claims is de novo. Iowa R. App. 6.4; State v.
Butler, 505 N.W.2d 806, 807 (Iowa 1993).
III. Double Jeopardy
The Double Jeopardy Clause of the United States Constitution provides
no person shall “be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life
or limb.” U.S. Const. amend. V. This guarantee is applicable to state criminal
proceedings through the due process provision of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Benton v. Maryland, 395 U.S. 784, 794, 89 S. Ct. 2056, 2062, 23 L. Ed. 2d 707,
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716 (1969). Additionally, the Iowa Constitution provides “[n]o person shall after
acquittal, be tried for the same offense.” Iowa Const. art. I, § 12. “The same
constitutional standards for determining when jeopardy attaches must be applied
equally in both federal and state courts.” State v. Franzen, 495 N.W.2d 714,
715-16 (Iowa 1993).
The Double Jeopardy Clause provides a defendant with three basic
protections: “It protects against a second prosecution for the same offense after
an acquittal. It protects against a second prosecution for the same offense after
conviction. And it protects against multiple punishments for the same offense.”
Ohio v. Johnson, 467 U.S. 493, 498, 104 S. Ct. 2536, 2540, 81 L. Ed. 2d 425,
433 (1984).
The issue raised in this case relates to multiple or subsequent
prosecutions for the same offense after a conviction. The State and Trainer
agree that trespass is a lesser-included offense of second-degree burglary. See
State v. Sangster, 299 N.W.2d 661, 664 (Iowa 1980) (holding that criminal
trespass is a lesser-included offense of second-degree burglary); see also
Blockburger v. United States, 284 U.S. 299, 304, 52 S. Ct. 180, 182, 76 L. Ed.
306, 309 (1932) (stating that the elements of two offenses are compared in order
to determine whether they are separate offenses).
Generally, “the Double
Jeopardy Clause prohibits prosecution of a defendant for a greater offense when
he has already been tried and acquitted or convicted on the lesser included
offense.” Johnson, 467 U.S. at 501, 104 S. Ct. at 2542, 81 L. Ed. 2d at 434; see
Brown v. Ohio, 432 U.S. 161, 169, 97 S. Ct. 2221, 2227, 53 L. Ed. 2d 187, 196
(1977) (holding that following a defendant‟s plea and sentence to a misdemeanor
charge, the Double Jeopardy Clause prohibited a subsequent charge of a greater
6
offense); see also Green v. United States, 355 U.S. 184, 190, 78 S. Ct. 221, 225,
2 L. Ed. 2d 199, 205-06 (1957) (holding that a conviction of a lesser-included
offense operates as an acquittal of the greater offense). However, subsequent
prosecutions may not be prohibited under all circumstances. Johnson, 467 U.S.
at 501-02, 104 S. Ct. at 2542, 81 L. Ed. 2d at 434-35; Franzen, 495 N.W.2d at
717.
In Ohio v. Johnson, the United States Supreme Court examined a
situation where a defendant was indicted on four offenses in a single indictment,
to which he pled not guilty to the charges of murder and aggravated robbery, but
pled guilty to the lesser-included charges of involuntary manslaughter and grand
theft. Johnson, 467 U.S. at 496, 104 S. Ct. at 2539, 81 L. Ed. 2d at 431. Over
the State‟s objection, the trial court accepted the defendant‟s guilty pleas to the
lesser-included offenses and sentenced the defendant to a term of imprisonment.
Id. Subsequently, the trial court dismissed the pending murder and aggravated
robbery charges, finding that because the charges the defendant had pled guilty
to were lesser-included offenses of the pending charges, continued prosecution
was barred by the Double Jeopardy Clause. Id.
The Supreme Court reversed. It discussed that under those procedural
facts, the principles of finality and prevention of prosecutorial overreaching that
the Double Jeopardy Clause was intended to protect were not implicated. Id. at
501, 104 S. Ct. at 2452, 81 L. Ed. 2d at 435.
The acceptance of a guilty plea to lesser-included offenses while
charges on the greater offenses remain pending, . . . has none of
the implications of an „implied acquittal‟ which results from a verdict
convicting the defendant on lesser-included offenses rendered by a
jury charged to consider both greater and lesser-included offenses.
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Id. at 501-02, 104 S. Ct. at 2452, 81 L. Ed. 2d at 435. The Supreme Court
reasoned that a defendant “should not be entitled to use the Double Jeopardy
Clause as a sword to prevent the State from completing its prosecution on the
remaining charges.” Id. at 502, 104 S. Ct. at 2452, 81 L. Ed. 2d at 435. Thus,
the Double Jeopardy Clause did not prohibit the State from prosecuting the
defendant on the greater charges of murder and aggravated robbery. Id.3
In the present case, without notice to the State, Trainer withdrew her not
guilty plea and pled guilty to the lesser-included offense of trespass in what
appeared to the State to be an effort to avoid prosecution on the pending
burglary charge. However, Trainer is not entitled to “manipulate the proceedings
against her and to use the double jeopardy clause as a sword.”
Gonzalez, 677 N.E.2d 1207, 1211 (Ohio 1996).
State v.
Further, this case does not
involve any prosecutorial overreaching that the Double Jeopardy Clause is
designed to protect. Johnson, 467 U.S. at 501, 104 S. Ct. at 2542, 81 L. Ed. 2d
at 435.
Trainer asserts that this case is distinguishable from Ohio v. Johnson, and
points to the fact that the trespass and burglary were not charged together as the
trespass was brought in a citation by the arresting officer and the burglary charge
was then brought in a trial information.4 We do not find this fact dispositive.
3
Upon a finding of guilt on the greater offense, the convictions of the lesser-included
offenses would merge with the greater offense for purposes of sentencing. See
Johnson, 467 U.S. at 500, 104 S. Ct. at 2541, 81 L. Ed. 2d at 434 (stating that in the
event of a guilty verdict on the greater offense, the trial court “will have to confront the
question of cumulative punishments as a matter of state law”); State v. Finnel, 515
N.W.2d 41, 43 (Iowa 1994) (analyzing the double jeopardy prohibition against multiple
punishments to require sentences for greater and lesser offenses to merge).
4
We note that this situation could have been avoided had the prosecution timely
dismissed the trespass citation. See Gonzalez, 677 N.E.2d at 1211 (discussing that
8
Subsequent to Ohio v. Johnson, other courts have held that when a defendant
pleads guilty to a lesser-included charge with the knowledge of a greater charge
pending in a separate indictment or about to be filed in a separate indictment, the
defendant was not allowed to use double jeopardy as a sword to avoid
prosecution of the greater offense. See Buchanan v. Angelone, 103 F.3d 344,
350 (4th Cir. 1996) (discussing that the reasoning of Ohio v. Johnson applied
equally to a case involving multiple indictments brought in a single prosecution),
cert granted on other grounds 520 U.S. 1196, 117 S. Ct. 1551, 137 L. Ed. 2d 700
(1997); United States v. Quinones, 906 F.2d 924, 928 (2d Cir. 1990) (holding that
double jeopardy did not apply when a defendant pled guilty to a charge in a
pending indictment in order to avoid prosecution of a greater charge in an
indictment about to be filed), cert denied 498 U.S. 1069, 111 S. Ct. 789, 112 L.
Ed. 2d 851 (1991); State v. Kameroff, 171 P.3d 1160, 1163 (Alaska 2007)
(same); Gonzalez, 677 N.E.2d at 1211 (holding that where a defendant pled
guilty to a misdemeanor charge in order to avoid prosecution of a separate
pending felony charge, the defendant was estopped from relying on the Double
Jeopardy Clause to defeat the felony prosecution); see also 5 Wayne R. LaFave,
Jerold H. Israel, Nancy J. King & Orin S. Kerr, Criminal Procedure, § 25.1(d), at
591-92 (3d ed. 2007) (“The reasoning of [Ohio v.] Johnson probably also allows
the government, by objecting to a defendant‟s guilty plea to a lesser offense, to
defeat a defendant‟s effort to head off more serious charges that were not joined
with the lesser offense at the time to the plea, but were known by the defendant
although the State was not blameless, any blame to be assessed against the State is
outweighed by the defendant‟s failure to move to have the charges against her
consolidated).
9
to be pending in another indictment or about to be filed.”); B. John Burns, Iowa
Criminal Procedure § 38.3, at 702 (2006) (“Another circumstance permitting the
government to charge a greater offense after jeopardy has attached on a [lesserincluded offense] occurs where the defendant attempts to reap an unwarranted
benefit of the Fifth Amendment by entering a plea of guilty to a lesser offense
without the consent of the prosecution.”).
We conclude that in this situation, the Double Jeopardy Clause does not
prevent the State from prosecuting the greater offense. Therefore, it was error
for the district court to dismiss the second-degree burglary charge against
Trainer. We reverse and remand for further proceedings.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
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