IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 19-1638

Filed April 28, 2021

STATE OF IOWA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

vs.

NICHOLAS A. IARIA, II,

Defendant-Appellant.

________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, Jeffrey D. Farrell, 

Judge.

Nicholas Iaria II appeals the sentence imposed following his pleas of guilty. 

SENTENCE VACATED AND CASE REMANDED.

Alfredo Parrish and Andrew Dunn of Parrish Kruidenier Dunn Boles Gribble 

Gentry Brown Bergmann & Messamer L.L.P., Des Moines, for appellant.

Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Timothy M. Hau, Assistant Attorney 

General, for appellee.

Considered by Bower, C.J., and Doyle and Mullins, JJ.
2

BOWER, Chief Judge.

Nicholas Iaria II appeals the sentence imposed following his pleas of guilty1

to intimidation with a weapon without intent, in violation of Iowa Code section 

708.6(2) (2018); going armed with intent, in violation of section 708.8, and reckless 

use of a firearm causing damage, in violation of section 724.30(3). Iaria contends 

the court abused its sentencing discretion and imposed consecutive sentences 

based on the mistaken belief the parties agreed to consecutive sentences.

Because Iaria received a discretionary sentence that was neither 

mandatory nor agreed to as part of his plea bargain, he has established good 

cause to appeal.2 See Iowa Code § 814.6(1)(a)(3) (Supp. 2019) (providing the 

right to appeal from a conviction entered upon a guilty plea only when the 

conviction is for a class “A” felony or the defendant establishes good cause);

Damme, 944 N.W.2d at 105 (“We hold that good cause exists to appeal from a 

 

1

Iaria entered Alford pleas. See North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.W. 25, 37 (1970). 

“Under this procedure, ‘the defendant acknowledges the evidence strongly 

negates the defendant’s claim of innocence and enters [a guilty] plea to avoid a 

harsher sentence.’” State v. Knight, 701 N.W.2d 83, 85 (Iowa 2005) (alteration in 

original) (citation omitted).

2

Iaria contends his appeal is not subject to the 2019 amendment to Iowa Code 

section 814.6(1), which—as of July 1, 2019—denies a defendant the right of 

appeal from a guilty plea, except for a guilty plea to a class “A” felony or in a case 

where a defendant establishes good cause. Iowa Code § 814.6(1)(a)(3) (2020). 

Despite the fact that Iaria entered his pleas in June 2019, judgment was not 

entered until August 30. Therefore, the new statute controls Iaria’s right to appeal. 

See State v. Boldon, 954 N.W.2d 62, 68 (Iowa 2021) (“The statutory right of direct 

appeal is determined by those laws ‘in effect at the time the judgment or order 

appealed from was rendered.’” (citation omitted)); State v. Damme, 944 N.W.2d 

98, 103 n.1 (Iowa 2020).

Iaria’s constitutional challenges to the amendment were not raised below 

and, therefore, are not preserved for our review. See State v. Derby, 800 N.W.2d 

52, 60 (Iowa 2011) (“[I]ssues not raised before the district court, including 

constitutional issues, cannot be raised for the first time on appeal.” (citation 

omitted)).
3

conviction following a guilty plea when the defendant challenges his or her 

sentence rather than the guilty plea.”); see also Boldon, 954 N.W.2d at 69 (finding 

“good cause” for an appeal where the defendant does not challenge the guilty plea 

but “[i]nstead . . . challenges the sentencing hearing and his sentence”).

We review sentencing decisions for correction of errors of law. State v. 

Formaro, 638 N.W.2d 720, 724 (Iowa 2002).

A sentencing court’s decision to impose a specific sentence that falls 

within the statutory limits “is cloaked with a strong presumption in its 

favor, and will only be overturned for an abuse of discretion or the 

consideration of inappropriate matters.” We afford sentencing 

judges a significant amount of latitude because of the “discretionary 

nature of judging and the source of the respect afforded by the 

appellate process.” Nevertheless, “[i]f a court in determining a 

sentence uses any improper consideration, resentencing of the 

defendant is required . . . even if it was merely a ‘secondary 

consideration.’” 

Boldon, 954 N.W.2d at 73 (citations omitted).

Iaria asserts the court improperly employed a fixed policy in rejecting 

suspended sentences. See State v. Hildebrand, 280 N.W.2d 393, 396 (Iowa 1979)

(“The court is not permitted to arbitrarily establish a fixed policy to govern every 

case, as that is the exact antithesis of discretion.” (citation omitted)). Iaria 

maintains the court denied him probation based on a prior sentencing decision, 

thereby depriving him of an individualized sentencing determination. We believe 

this is a mischaracterization of the judge’s thought process:

All right. So when I consider these decisions—and I will say, 

this is a challenging decision for a number of reasons. I don’t waffle 

on a lot of cases, I will be honest. Usually the results seem evident 

to me after I walk my way through the various factors, and it’s the 

way most cases tend to go. This one, there’s a lot of balancing to be 

done on both sides.

. . . .
4

. . . [T]his isn’t just a case involving, you know, a minor assault 

or kind of a fistfight that went out of hand at the bar. This was firing 

a handgun, and the State is exactly right. I mean, someone could 

have been killed. Any time shots are fired where people are around, 

someone can get killed. And that is extremely significant and weighs 

heavily in my view.

I think I have done—I don’t know how many of these 

sentencings I’ve done in five years. I’ve been on the criminal docket 

three of those five years, maybe I have done a thousand 

sentencings, I don’t know. There’s only one I have any regret over 

whatsoever, and that was a case in which involved violence, and 

there was an issue of violence in the person’s past. The State came 

back and recommended probation because the person had strong 

family background, had children and a wife, job, all that was in place, 

seemed like potential for probation. I was a little nervous about it but 

went along with it, and that person was later killed following a fire 

fight with the Urbandale Police Department. And later his DNA was 

discovered at another crime scene.

And, you know, we make the decisions—best decisions we 

can. But that’s one that caused me to think about and think more 

deeply about how I handle decisions in these kinds of cases when 

we have acts of violence. It’s different than drug cases or maybe 

other—not cases involving nonviolent crimes, but this one is an 

extremely violent offense.

The emphasized language does not indicate a fixed policy of denying probation in 

cases involving violence. Rather, the language shows the court’s experience 

impressed upon the court the need for careful consideration of the many relevant 

factors. 

The relevant factors to consider when imposing sentence include the 

defendant’s age, prior criminal record, employment circumstances, mental health 

and substance abuse history, the nature of the offense, and “other factors as are 

appropriate.” Iowa Code § 907.5(1). Postconviction rehabilitation efforts are 

included among the “other factors as appropriate.” State v. Hopkins, 860 N.W.2d 

550, 554–55 (Iowa 2015). 
5

Here, the court noted it would consider the victim impact statement. The 

court considered Iaria’s age and his history of prior assaultive behavior. The court 

stated: 

Mr. Iaria, I talked about the dismissals, but now I’m coming 

back to this assaultive behavior class. You took one of those in 2014. 

Did that work? Didn’t work on this night. And then you have another 

instance back in 2006 where you had a more minor assault, paid a 

$100 fine, but again had to take an assaultive behavior class. Did

that work? No, apparently not, because here we are. You’re [fortysix] years old and maybe [forty-five] at the time of this offense. And 

you say you weren’t intoxicated, yet you’re at the bar and—or the 

parking lot, and you’re carrying a weapon and you’re firing shots, and 

you recognize now that it was wrong. . . . You offer some mitigating 

factors, but, ultimately, it doesn’t really matter when you’re firing a 

weapon at someone when they aren’t firing a weapon at you.

I think concerning everything together, considering your 

rehabilitation and protection of the public, I am going to make the 

decision to sentence you to prison. And I think that is justified by the 

circumstances and the fact that you have some experiences with the

criminal justice system and you have taken assault classes in the 

past and you just haven’t learned from it. And I think it’s important 

that that lesson be driven home. I might be willing to consider a 

motion to reconsider after some time has gone by, see how you do 

incarcerated, but that’s going to be the decision of the court.

We find no abuse of discretion in the court’s consideration of these factors. 

The court sentenced Iaria to an indeterminate term of five years on the first 

two offenses and two years on the third offense, for a total of twelve years. The 

court stated: “They will be run consecutively for the separate and serious nature of 

those offenses and based upon the agreement of the parties that resulted in the 

plea.”

3 The State concedes this is a misstatement of the plea agreement, which 

allowed the parties to argue for any legal sentence. The parties’ sentencing 

 

3 The court repeated this misstatement of the plea in a later ruling where the court 

wrote: “The parties agreed that defendant would be sentenced consecutively for 

twelve years as part of the plea.” 
6

arguments focused on whether the court should impose incarceration or suspend 

sentence.4 

We do not speculate whether the district court would have imposed 

consecutive sentences in the absence of the misstatement. “If a court in 

determining a sentence uses any improper consideration, resentencing of the 

defendant is required.” State v. Grandberry, 619 N.W.2d 399, 401 (Iowa 2000). 

We therefore vacate the sentence and remand for resentencing. 

SENTENCE VACATED AND CASE REMANDED.

 

4 The State did not argue for consecutive sentences.