IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 20-0149

Filed January 12, 2022

STATE OF IOWA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

vs.

KYLE ANDREW HATTRUP,

Defendant-Appellant.

________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Black Hawk County, Bradley J. 

Harris, Judge.

Kyle Hattrup appeals his convictions and sentences for multiple crimes. 

AFFIRMED.

Adam R. Junaid of Frerichs Law Office, P.C., Waterloo, for appellant.

Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Zachary Miller, Assistant Attorney 

General, for appellee.

Heard by Mullins, P.J., and Schumacher and Ahlers, JJ.
2

AHLERS, Judge.

Kyle Hattrup suffered head trauma a number of times from birth through 

high school. He received mental-health treatment and medication over the years

as a result. Throughout his adult years, he had a number of episodes of explosive 

anger. On December 18, 2015, Hattrup had one of those episodes. He broke 

items in his house, went to his parents’ house, broke some of their property, and 

returned home to go to bed. The next day, he took gasoline and matches to his 

parents’ house, poured the gas in their garage, and lit it, starting a fire. His uncle, 

who lived next door to his parents, called the police. When he heard his uncle 

talking to the police, Hattrup tried to leave. When his mother tried to stop him, he 

struck her. He returned home to find his live-in girlfriend had locked him out of the 

house. As he tried to break his way in through the back door, his girlfriend left out 

the front door where she met police officers arriving at the scene. Hattrup grabbed 

a shotgun from his bedside, stepped onto the front porch, “racked” a shell into the 

chamber, and pointed it in the direction of the police officers. The situation was 

eventually resolved peacefully when Hattrup took the shotgun back in the house, 

came out with his hands up, and followed police orders to lie down. After being 

arrested, Hattrup apologized to the officers.

This incident resulted in multiple criminal charges against Hattrup. At trial, 

he asserted defenses of diminished responsibility and insanity. The jury rejected 

Hattrup’s defenses and found him guilty of assault while displaying a dangerous 

weapon,1interference with official acts while armed with a firearm,2 and reckless 

 

1 See Iowa Code §§ 708.1(2)(c), 708.2(3) (2015) (an aggravated misdemeanor).

2 See Iowa Code § 719.1(1)(f) (a class “D” felony).
3

use of fire.3 He was sentenced accordingly. Hattrup appeals. He seeks a new 

trial due to the district court’s exclusion of certain evidence he sought to admit. He 

also seeks resentencing based on his claim that the district court considered 

unproven facts and improper factors.

I. Evidentiary Issues

Hattrup tried to introduce testimony from himself, his mother, and his 

girlfriend about improvement in his demeanor, affect, and general mental condition 

over the four-year period between the events leading to the charges and his trial.4 

The State objected on relevance grounds. The court sustained the objection and 

excluded the evidence. Hattrup claims this was error warranting a new trial.

As noted, Hattrup asserts an insanity defense. By asserting an insanity

defense, a defendant bears the burden to prove by a preponderance of the 

evidence that (1) the defendant suffered from a diseased or deranged condition of 

the mind, and (2) the condition made the defendant either incapable of knowing 

the nature and quality of the act the defendant was committing or was incapable 

 

3 See Iowa Code § 712.5 (a serious misdemeanor).

4

In his briefs, Hattrup suggests he sought to admit evidence of “his behavior, 

demeanor, affect, and general mental health before,” during, and after the events 

that resulted in the charges, but the district court excluded the evidence. The 

record does not support this suggestion. The record reveals that Hattrup sought 

to admit, and the district court excluded, only evidence of Hattrup’s condition after 

the events leading to the charges. To the extent Hattrup now claims error for the 

exclusion of evidence of Hattrup’s condition before or during the events leading to 

the charges, we decline to address the claim. The court did not exclude such 

evidence. Further, Hattrup made no offer of proof and made no argument for 

admission of evidence about his condition before or during the event, so error was 

not preserved on that claim. See State v. Lange, 531 N.W.2d 108, 114 (Iowa 1995) 

(requiring offers of proof to preserve error when evidence is excluded). We limit 

our discussion to the preserved claim—the exclusion of evidence of Hattrup’s 

condition since the events leading to the charges.
4

of distinguishing between right and wrong in relation to the act.5 In his brief, 

Hattrup asserts evidence of his improved condition after the events leading to the 

charges is relevant to his insanity defense in this way:

[The evidence] is relevant because it is probative of his insanity: his 

demeanor and actions during times of proper functioning—that is, 

after the successful treatment—are so different than his demeanor 

and actions on the day in question that it tends to make it more 

probable that he was suffering from a diseased or deranged 

condition at the time, and the condition was bad enough that he could 

not know the nature and quality of his actions or distinguish right from 

wrong. This evidence is clearly relevant to the issue of his condition 

on the date of the events.

The district court did not find this argument persuasive and excluded the evidence 

as irrelevant. 

We review rulings on relevance of evidence for an abuse of discretion.6 A 

district court abuses its discretion in ruling on relevance objections when it 

“exercises its discretion ‘on grounds or for reasons clearly untenable or to an extent 

clearly unreasonable.’”

7

 The district court has broad discretion in making the call 

whether evidence is relevant.8 Given this standard of review, it is not our task to 

make an independent decision whether the excluded evidence was relevant. 

Rather, our task is to decide whether the district court’s exclusion of the evidence 

as irrelevant was clearly untenable or clearly unreasonable. Honoring the broad 

discretion afforded to the district court, we conclude its decision to exclude the 

evidence was not clearly untenable or clearly unreasonable. The relevant date on 

which Hattrup had the obligation to prove that he was legally insane was the date

 

5

Iowa Code § 701.4.

6 State v. Tipton, 897 N.W.2d 653, 691 (Iowa 2017).

7

Id. (quoting State v. Buenaventura, 660 N.W.2d 38, 50 (Iowa 2003)).

8 State v. Thompson, 954 N.W.2d 402, 407 (Iowa 2021).
5

that the events occurred that led to his charges. It was reasonable for the district 

court to conclude that evidence of Hattrup’s mental condition and the 

manifestations of it during the four-year period after the relevant date did not have 

any tendency to make a fact of consequence more or less probable than it would 

be without the evidence.9

Before leaving this issue, we address two cases that Hattrup contends 

support his claim that events occurring after the alleged criminal acts are relevant: 

State v. Wheeler10 and State v. Venzke.

11

 Neither case is sufficiently on point to 

persuade us that it supports Hattrup’s position. Neither case involves challenges 

to the admission or exclusion of evidence. Rather, the cases address the 

sufficiency of evidence supporting guilty findings that rejected insanity defenses. 

In finding sufficient evidence in both cases, our court considered

subsequent conduct. In Wheeler, we found adequate circumstantial evidence 

supporting the finding that Wheeler understood the nature of his acts and their 

wrongful nature because, after shooting and beating his father, he attempted to 

stage the house to look like a burglary, hid the gun, fled from Iowa under an 

assumed name, refused to divulge his whereabouts to his sister, and 

acknowledged that he knew he was in trouble.12 In Venzke, we found adequate 

evidence to overcome Venzke’s insanity defense based on evidence that, after 

 

9 See Iowa R. of Evid. 5.401 (defining evidence as relevant if “[i]t has any tendency 

to make a fact more or less probable than it would be without the evidence” and

“[t]he fact is of consequence in determining the action”).

10 403 N.W.2d 58 (Iowa Ct. App. 1987), overruled on other grounds by State v. 

Reeves, 636 N.W.2d 22, 24–25 (Iowa 2001).

11 576 N.W.2d 382 (Iowa Ct. App. 1997).

12 403 N.W.2d at 62.
6

killing his wife, he ran toward the family’s church, shed his blood-soaked clothes, 

and hid them.13 He also “told authorities he assumed he would either be raptured 

to heaven after the killing or be put in jail.”14

Neither of these cases convinces us any error occurred here. Here, as in 

Wheeler and Venzke, the State introduced evidence of Hattrup’s conduct 

immediately after the crimes were committed—specifically, evidence that Hattrup 

discarded the shotgun, surrendered with his hands up, obeyed commands, and 

apologized to police. That evidence was admitted to support the State’s challenge 

to the second prong of Hattrup’s insanity defense by suggesting that Hattrup knew 

the nature of his actions and he could distinguish between right and wrong near in 

time to when he committed the acts. In contrast, the evidence Hattrup sought to 

introduce—improvement of his mental health with treatment over the course of four 

years following his actions—shed no meaningful light on any fact of consequence, 

including whether he was legally insane at the time of the acts.

We find no error in the court’s exclusion of the evidence of Hattrup’s postevent mental-health treatment and its effect on him. Further, even if it had been

error to exclude the evidence, the error would not warrant reversal. Error in 

excluding evidence warrants reversal only when it affects a party’s substantial 

rights.15 To determine whether substantial rights are affected in cases dealing with 

nonconstitutional error, such as this, we employ harmless error analysis.16 This

 

13 576 N.W.2d at 384.

14 Id.

15 Eiesenhauer ex rel. T.D. v. Henry Cnty. Health Ctr., 935 N.W.2d 1, 19 (Iowa 

2019); see Iowa R. Evid. 5.103(a).

16 Id.
7

analysis presumes prejudice, and we “reverse unless the record affirmatively 

establishes otherwise.”17 Upon our review of the record, we find it affirmatively 

establishes a lack of prejudice. Both Hattrup’s expert and the State’s expert 

testified about the improvements Hattrup made regarding his mental health 

between the date of the incidents and trial. The experts based their testimony and 

opinions, in part, on information provided by Hattrup, his mother, and his girlfriend. 

Given that the evidence Hattrup sought to introduce—testimony from him, his 

mother, and his girlfriend about his mental-health progress since the episode at 

issue—was already presented to the jury through the experts, any error in the 

exclusion of that evidence was harmless because it was cumulative.18

We find no reversible error in the district court’s decision to exclude the 

evidence Hattrup sought to introduce.

II. Sentencing Issues

Hattrup also seeks resentencing. He claims the district court considered 

unproven facts and improper factors in determining his sentence. He targets three 

comments made by the sentencing judge. 

Before addressing the challenged comments, we first address our review 

standards. We give a sentencing judge significant latitude in choosing a sentence 

due to the discretionary nature of the sentencing decision and the respect afforded 

to the judge by the appellate process.

19

 Honoring that latitude, we will not reverse 

 

17 Id. (quoting State v. Russell, 893 N.W.2d 307, 314 (Iowa 2017)).

18 See State v. Windsor, 316 N.W.2d 684, 688 (Iowa 1982) (finding the 

presumption of prejudice is overcome by showing that the same evidence came 

into the record at another time).

19 State v. Fetner, 959 N.W.2d 129, 133–34 (Iowa 2021).
8

the sentencing decision unless there is an abuse of discretion or a defect in the 

sentencing procedure.20 If a sentence falls within “statutory limits, it ‘is cloaked 

with a strong presumption in its favor.’”

21

 Hattrup does not claim the sentence he 

received exceeded statutory limits, so his sentence is cloaked with that strong, 

favorable presumption. Even with this strong presumption, however, resentencing 

is required if the sentencing judge uses an improper consideration.22 Improper 

considerations include relying on unproven facts23 and relying on the defendant’s 

exercise of a constitutional right.24 Hattrup claims the district court considered both 

of these categories of improper factors.

A. Facts Relied Upon

Hattrup claims the district court improperly relied on multiple unproven facts. 

His first claim is based on the district court’s statement, “You were basically 

chasing your girlfriend out of the house at the time that you went out there. 

Whether you were chasing her or not, she had just left the house and you followed 

her with the firearm.” Hattrup takes issue with the court’s characterization of his 

conduct as chasing or following his girlfriend out of the house. He claims his 

girlfriend’s testimony negates this characterization, so it is not supported by the 

record. We find the district court’s statements supported by the record. It is true 

 

20 State v. Damme, 944 N.W.2d 98, 103 (Iowa 2020).

21 Fetner, 959 N.W.2d. at 134 (quoting State v. Boldon, 954 N.W.2d 62, 73 (Iowa 

2021)).

22 Id.

23 See id. at 135–36 (finding it improper for the sentencing judge to speculate that 

the defendant was working at a day care while under the influence of drugs when 

no evidence was presented that the defendant was doing so).

24 See State v. Nichols, 247 N.W.2d 249, 255 (Iowa 1976) (noting that a sentencing 

judge cannot use a defendant’s exercise of the defendant’s constitutional rights 

against the defendant).
9

that Hattrup’s girlfriend testified she went out the front door while Hattrup was still 

trying to force his way through the back door, and, when Hattrup exited the front 

door, she was on the front sidewalk “kind of in front of the empty lot” right next 

door. But Hattrup’s successful entry through the back door followed by his 

appearance on the front porch with a shotgun was soon enough after his 

girlfriend’s exit through the front door that he can be fairly characterized as 

following her out of the house.25 The facts recited by the district court are 

supported by the record,

26 so the court committed no error in considering them.

Hattrup’s second claim challenges the district court’s statement, “Everyone 

said they saw the signs that it[27] was building, and yet they allowed this firearm to 

sit by your bed. They allowed you to have access to it. . . . [N]o one would stand 

up to you and say that weapon, you don’t belong with that.” Hattrup claims the 

record does not support this assertion and it involved speculation by the court. We 

believe Hattrup takes the comment out of context by reciting only part of the court’s 

comments on this topic. To address his claim, we find it important to recite the 

entire comment:

And I’ve weighed all of those things, and I’ve also included 

that your attorney talked about the support that you have, and it is 

wonderful. But there is something that very much concerns me about 

that support, and that is, everyone knew about your condition. They 

didn’t know . . . the right name for it, but they knew that you could 

lose control. They knew that this was coming on. Everyone said 

they saw the signs that it was building, and yet they allowed this 

 

25 See Follow, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/

follow (last visited Jan. 9, 2022) (defining follow to include “to go, proceed, or come 

after” and “to go or come after a person or thing in place, time, or sequence”).

26 See State v. Grandberry, 619 N.W.2d 399, 401 (Iowa 2000) (finding that the 

standard of proof at the sentencing stage is by a preponderance of the evidence); 

see also Fetner, 959 N.W.2d at 135 (same).

27 Presumably, “it” refers to Hattrup’s mental-health issues or erratic behavior.
10

firearm to sit by your bed. They allowed you to have access to it. 

You knew it was coming, and you chose to have access to it. And—

and frankly that—that’s scary to this court that—that—that knowing 

that you chose to still have this dangerous weapon there, that no one 

would stand up to you and say that weapon, you don’t belong with 

that. And because of that you put together all the pieces of a 

disaster. And actually it is simply because of the restraint of the 

Waterloo police department that we didn’t have a total disaster.

Looking at the comments as a whole, it is clear they were in response to facts 

introduced by Hattrup at the sentencing hearing—specifically his claim of support

from others. The court’s responsive comments are supported by the record. The 

evidence at trial shows that the people of Hattrup’s support system knew he 

possessed the gun and kept it in his bedroom. They also knew about his mentalhealth conditions and his explosive anger issues. In spite of Hattrup’s volatile 

nature, the shotgun remained easily accessible by him in his bedroom. Given this 

evidence, coupled with the lack of any evidence that any members of Hattrup’s 

support system tried to limit his access to the shotgun, it was fair for the district 

court to infer that no members of the support system tried to limit Hattrup’s access 

to the gun, or, if they did, their efforts were unsuccessful. The record supports the 

district court’s observations, and those observations were appropriate to respond 

to Hattrup’s claim that his support system made him less of a danger.28 We find 

no error in the court’s comments.

B. Exercising Constitutional Rights

For his final sentencing challenge, Hattrup points to the above-quoted

 

28 See State v. Headley, 926 N.W.2d 545, 550 (Iowa 2019) (listing factors a 

sentencing court can consider to include “the nature of the offense” and “the 

attending circumstances”).
11

comments by the district court. Hattrup relies on District of Columbia v. Heller29 to

contend he has a right under the Second Amendment to the United States 

Constitution to keep the shotgun in his home for self-protection. He asserts the 

court’s comments show that the court held his exercise of his Second Amendment 

rights against him and, as a result, the court considered an improper sentencing 

factor. 

We acknowledge that a sentencing judge cannot use a defendant’s exercise 

of the defendant’s constitutional rights against the defendant.

30

 But we disagree 

that the court did so here. Heller recognizes that Second Amendment rights are 

not unlimited: “Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is 

not unlimited. From Blackstone through the 19th-century cases, commentators 

and courts routinely explained that the right was not a right to keep and carry any 

weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose.”31 Our 

supreme court has recognized that, while “[t]he law may be unsettled as to the 

precise scope of what rights the Second Amendment protects,” it is certain it does 

not protect using a firearm for criminal behavior.

32

 In particular, the supreme court 

found there is no Second Amendment “right to be armed while interfering with 

lawful police activity” in violation of Iowa Code section 719.1—one of the crimes 

for which Hattrup was being sentenced.

33 As always, the district court’s comments 

 

29 554 U.S. 570 (2008).

30 See Nichols, 247 N.W.2d at 255 (noting that a sentencing judge cannot use a 

defendant’s exercise of the defendant’s constitutional rights against the 

defendant).

31 554 U.S. at 626 

32 State v. Brecunier, 564 N.W.2d 365, 370 (Iowa 1997).

33 Id.
12

must be put in context. Placed in proper context, we do not view the court’s 

comments as holding it against Hattrup that he possessed a gun. Rather, the court 

viewed it as dangerous behavior that, knowing he could exhibit explosive behavior 

due to his mental-health condition, Hattrup continued to possess a gun that he 

then used to assault another person and that he possessed while interfering with 

lawful police activity. As Hattrup had no Second Amendment right to engage in 

criminal behavior with his firearm, the district court did not improperly consider 

Hattrup’s action with that firearm in deciding on a proper sentence.

III. Conclusion

We find no error in the district court’s exclusion of Hattrup’s post-crime 

mental-health condition and treatment progress. Also, even if the evidence should 

not have been excluded, the evidence had already been presented to the jury 

through other witnesses, so any error was harmless.

As for sentencing, the district court did not consider any improper facts or 

factors in deciding on Hattrup’s sentence. Accordingly, Hattrup is not entitled to 

resentencing.

AFFIRMED.