IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 14-0945

Filed April 8, 2015

STATE OF IOWA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

vs.

CHARLES E. WALKER JR.,

Defendant-Appellant.

________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Scott County, Stuart P. Werling, 

Judge.

Charles E. Walker Jr. appeals the denial of his motion to correct an illegal 

sentence. AFFIRMED.

Courtney T. Wilson of Gomez May L.L.P., Davenport, for appellant.

Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Darrell Mullins, Assistant Attorney 

General, and Alan R. Ostergren, County Attorney, for appellee.

Considered by Danilson, C.J., and Potterfield and Bower, JJ.
2

DANILSON, C.J.

Charles E. Walker Jr. appeals the denial of his motion to correct an illegal 

sentence.

A defendant may challenge an illegal sentence at any time. State v.

Bruegger, 773 N.W.2d 862, 869 (Iowa 2009). Our review of constitutional claims 

is de novo. Id. 

On August 30, 1988, two criminal complaints were filed against Charles 

Walker in Muscatine, Iowa. On October 7, 1988, an order was entered 

transferring this matter from the juvenile court to the district court. The State filed 

a trial information with attached minutes of testimony on October 11, 1988, 

charging Walker with Count I—first-degree kidnapping, Count II—willful injury, 

Count III—first-degree sexual abuse, Count IV—first-degree burglary, and Count 

V—attempted murder. According to the minutes of testimony, on July 5, 1988, 

Walker entered the home of the victim uninvited between the hours of 8:00 to 

9:00 p.m. He assaulted the victim by striking her, choking her multiple times with 

an electric cord, forcing her to perform sexual acts upon him, and attempting to 

have intercourse with her against her will. 

On November 4, 1988, defense counsel filed a motion to suspend

proceedings and application for psychological examination. Walker was fifteen 

years old at the time of the offenses. The application was granted, and the 

Mental Health Institute in Independence, Iowa, was ordered to evaluate Walker 

to determine whether he was suffering from a mental disorder that prevented him 

from appreciating the charge, understanding the proceedings, or assisting 

effectively in his defense. 
3

On December 23, 1988, a plea agreement was filed in the district court in 

which the State agreed to dismiss the kidnapping and attempted murder charges 

in exchange for Walker’s guilty pleas to the offenses of second-degree sexual 

abuse, first-degree burglary, and willful injury, for which the State would 

recommend consecutive sentences. The same day, the district court entered a 

form order, checking the box indicating the court “accepts the plea and it will 

embody in the judgment and sentence the disposition provided for in the plea 

agreement or another disposition more favorable to the Defendant than that 

provided for in the plea agreement.” A presentence investigation report was 

prepared, which set out Walker’s social and mental health history, which we need 

not reiterate here. On January 27, 1989, a court calendar entry1indicates 

Walker was sentenced to serve consecutive terms of incarceration not to exceed 

twenty-five years on the burglary charge, twenty-five years on the sexual abuse 

charge, and ten years on the willful injury charge. There was no mandatory 

minimum prison term imposed.

2

 

On September 3, 2013, Walker filed a pro se motion to correct an illegal 

sentence, contending the consecutive sentences were disproportionate to the 

crime, citing State v. Ragland, 836 N.W.2d 107 (Iowa 2013); State v. Null, 836 

N.W.2d 41 (Iowa 2013); and State v. Pearson, 836 N.W.2d 88 (Iowa 2013).

On May 7, 2014, after hearing arguments, the district court dismissed 

Walker’s motion, stating:

 

1 Nothing in the district court file indicates Walker’s sentencing was recorded or 

transcribed. 

2 The State asserts Walker has always been eligible for parole and could discharge his 

sentence in 2017.
4

It’s the ruling of the court that in this case the sentencing 

court did, in fact, give individualized attention to the sentence 

involved. The court had before it the option of sentencing the 

defendant to twenty-five, thirty-five, fifty, or sixty years, and in its 

discretion chose the maximum sentence. The fact that the 

defendant will have served the sentence in full and be released, 

without further violation, by the board of parole within two to three

years is an indication to the court that it is not, in fact, a life 

sentence disproportionate to the crime committed. And in that 

regard, the court notes that having read the victim impact 

statements, the trial information, and the minutes of testimony, that 

the alleged offense in this case was very heinous. The court also 

would indicate that having read the original trial information, as part 

of the plea agreement an attempted murder charge was dismissed. 

The court is not taking into consideration any charges to which the 

defendant did not plead guilty, but that was part of the plea 

agreement, which—the benefit to which this defendant received by 

pleading guilty twenty-six years ago. 

Accordingly, it’s the ruling of the court that there is no illegal 

sentence to be corrected.

Walker now appeals. His challenge to his original sentence does not 

focus on disproportionality. Rather, he contends his sentence was illegal 

because:

Although we do not have access to a transcript to reflect what was 

considered by the court at the time of Walker’s sentencing all the 

way back in 1989, it is apparent that Walker, and every juvenile 

offender sentenced in adult court prior to Miller [v. Alabama, 132 S. 

Ct. 2448 (2012)], was deprived of the type of individualized

sentencing hearing envisioned by its ruling, and recognized by the 

Iowa Supreme Court. Because the sentencing judge did not have 

access to Miller in 1989, it is unquestionable that consideration was 

not given to the factors set forth in Miller. Our Iowa Supreme Court 

has held that Miller applies retroactively. Therefore, Walker is 

entitled to be resentenced under an individualized process in the 

district court. 

In Miller, 132 S. Ct. at 2463, the United States Supreme Court held that a 

mandatory life-without-parole sentence for juveniles violates the Eighth 

Amendment of the United States Constitution.
5

In Pearson, the defendant challenged her seventy-percent mandatory 

minimum sentence as cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth 

Amendment to the United States Constitution and article I, section 17 of the Iowa 

Constitution. 836 N.W.2d at 89. Pearson, then seventeen years old, was 

convicted of two counts of first-degree robbery and two counts of first-degree 

burglary. Id. The district court sentenced her to serve concurrent sentences for 

the convictions arising from each transaction—one count of first-degree robbery 

and one count of first-degree burglary—but ordered those two sentences be 

served consecutively. Id. Because each first-degree robbery conviction carried

a sentence of twenty-five years imprisonment subject to a seventy percent 

mandatory minimum, Pearson received a fifty-year sentence and would not be 

eligible for parole until she served thirty-five years. Id. Our supreme court ruled, 

“[W]e think a minimum of thirty-five years without the possibility of parole for the 

crimes involved in this case violates the core teachings of Miller.” Id. at 96. 

And in a case decided after the district court ruled in Walker’s case, State 

v. Lyle, 854 N.W.2d 378, 382 (Iowa 2014), our supreme court examined whether 

the seventy percent mandatory minimum of a ten-year sentence for seconddegree robbery was constitutional in light of Ragland, Pearson, and Null. The 

supreme court “conclude[d] that the sentencing of juveniles according to 

statutorily required mandatory minimums does not adequately serve the 

legitimate penological objectives in light of the child’s categorically diminished 

culpability.” Lyle, 854 N.W.2d at 398. 

But there was no mandatory minimum imposed in Walker’s case, and our 

supreme court has observed “[t]here is nothing cruel and unusual about 
6

punishing a person committing two crimes more severely than a person 

committing one crime, which is the effect of consecutive sentencing.” State v.

August, 589 N.W.2d 740, 744 (Iowa 1999). Moreover, we reject Walker’s

argument made here that Walker was deprived of an individualized sentencing 

determination. The district court here concluded the sentencing court “did, in 

fact, give individualized attention to the sentence involved.” Walker has given us 

no information to rule otherwise.3

Agreeing with the district court that no illegal sentence was imposed, we 

affirm the district court’s dismissal of Walker’s motion to correct an illegal 

sentence.

AFFIRMED. 

 

3 Walker only raised on appeal the cruel and unusual punishment claim, and cursorily 

suggests that individualized sentencing hearings should be afforded all juveniles given 

long sentences—a requirement not yet imposed by the Iowa Supreme Court.