Opinion ID: 1577090
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Increased Sentence Following Reconviction.

Text: Defendant was charged with and convicted of violating Iowa Code section 698.1 (1977), at both the 1978 and 1981 trials. Violation of section 698.1 rendered defendant subject to a determinate sentence of not less than five years, up to a maximum of life imprisonment. Iowa Code § 698.1 (1977). Following the 1978 conviction, trial court sentenced defendant to a term not to exceed ten years. Ten years was the applicable indeterminate term at the time of the 1978 trial, under the 1977 revision of the Iowa Criminal Code, for the offense of sexual abuse in the third degree. 1976 Iowa Acts, ch. 1245, §§ 203, 209 (codified at Iowa Code §§ 902.3, 902.9 (Supp.1977)). Following defendant's second conviction under section 698.1 the trial court, with a different judge presiding, concluded the evidence disclosed defendant had been aided and abetted in commission of the offense. The court found the equivalent offense under the revised criminal code to be second-degree sexual abuse, a class B felony. The court then sentenced defendant to a term not to exceed twenty-five years. [3] There is nothing in the record before us indicating that defendant at any time requested under Iowa Code section 801.5(2)(b)(2) (Supp.1977) to be sentenced under the provisions of the new code. The applicable statute, Iowa Code section 698.1 (1977), thus called for a determinate, not indeterminate, sentence: If any person ravish and carnally know any female by force or against her will. . . he shall be imprisoned in the penitentiary for life, or any term of years, not less than five, and the court may pronounce sentence for a lesser period than the maximum, the provisions of the indeterminate sentence law to the contrary notwithstanding. That the culprit was aided and abetted in performance of the act was of no consequence under the law at the time of this alleged crime, and accordingly could play no part in the jury's guilty verdict. The applicable offense under the revised code therefore was not the section 709.3(3) aided and abetted provision, but section 709.4(1), which provides: Any sex act between persons who are not at the time cohabiting as husband and wife is sexual abuse in the third degree by a person when the act is performed with the other participant in any of the following circumstances: 1. Such act is done by force or against the will of the other participant. In applying section 709.3(3), the court on reconviction substituted, for the old offense, the revision's definition of a crime not covered under the old code. See State v. Buck, 275 N.W.2d 194, 196 (Iowa 1979). Thus, even if defendant had elected to be sentenced under the revised code, the court upon reconviction erred in passing a sentence based on section 709.3(3). A defendant is not allowed to use the sentencing election and new statutory definitions to his potential benefit. The court, conversely, should be prohibited from applying a sentencing election and a revised statutory definition to a defendant's detriment. See id. [4] This determination makes it unnecessary for us to consider defendant's claim the second enhanced sentence was unconstitutional under the prophylactic rule, announced in North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U.S. 711, 89 S.Ct. 2072, 23 L.Ed.2d 656 (1969), designed to remove the motive of vindictiveness from resentencing proceedings. In Pearce the Court held the reason for imposition of an increased sentence must be shown affirmatively on the record, and must be based on defendant's conduct occurring after the proceeding in which sentence originally was imposed. Id. at 726, 89 S.Ct. at 2081, 23 L.Ed.2d at 670. See Blackledge v. Perry, 417 U.S. 21, 28-29, 94 S.Ct. 2098, 2100, 40 L.Ed.2d 628, 635 (1974); Colten v. Kentucky, 407 U.S. 104, 117, 92 S.Ct. 1953, 1960, 32 L.Ed.2d 584, 593 (1972). We hold the district court judgment must be reversed, and this case remanded for new trial. REVERSED AND REMANDED FOR NEW TRIAL.