Opinion ID: 1742814
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Domestic Abuse Assault as Predicate Offense for Felony Murder.

Text: The defendant claims error in the trial court's refusal to dismiss the felony murder charge based on third-offense domestic abuse assault. He argues third-offense domestic abuse assault is a felony only due to the fact that the offense was committed at least three times; without this prior-crimes sentencing enhancement, domestic abuse is a misdemeanor. See Iowa Code § 708.2A(2)( b ) (On a first offense of domestic abuse assault, the person commits . . . [a] serious misdemeanor, if the domestic abuse assault causes bodily injury or mental illness.), .2A(4) (On a third or subsequent offense of domestic abuse assault, a person commits a class D felony.). Newell contends the legislature did not intend that a felony murder be based on a misdemeanor offense for which repeat offenders are sentenced as felons. See id. §§ 707.2(2) (stating a person commits murder in the first degree if [t]he person kills another person while participating in a forcible felony), 702.11(1) (defining a forcible felony to include a felonious assault). We need not address this issue because Newell suffered no prejudice from the submission of this alternative. See Rodriquez, 636 N.W.2d at 239 n. 1 (refusing to reverse defendant's convictions based on alleged error in submission of attempted murder charge because defendant was not prejudiced: he was acquitted of attempted murder charge and had not established that the challenged offense infected his convictions of the other offenses). To avoid possible prejudice from proof of Newell's prior convictions for domestic abuse assault, the trial court decided to submit the third-offense element of third-offense domestic abuse assault to the jury only if the jury convicted the defendant of first-degree murder and only if the jury relied solely on the domestic abuse assault alternative to do so. In its verdict, the jury indicated in response to a special interrogatory that no member of the jury had relied solely and exclusively on the theory of participation in Assault Domestic Abuse to convict the defendant of firstdegree murder. Newell argues that even if the jury verdict establishes that he was not convicted of first-degree murder based solely on the domestic-abuse-assault alternative, he was still prejudiced by the submission of this theory because it opened the door to proof of Newell's prior bad acts against the victim. But as our discussion of the defendant's challenge to the admission of prior-acts evidence explains, this evidence was relevant to the malice aforethought element of murder, an element common to all alternatives of first-degree murder. Consequently, even if domestic abuse assault had not been included in the first-degree murder instruction, the prior-acts evidence would still have been admissible. Therefore, the defendant has failed to show that any error in the submission of the domestic-abuse-assault theory infected his first-degree murder conviction.