Court Opinion

ID: 9895748
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-08 17:06:30.830258+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:11:27.813733
License: Public Domain

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

                                 No. 22-0373
                           Filed November 8, 2023

STATE OF IOWA,
     Plaintiff-Appellee,

vs.

KEITH LAMONT WOODS,
     Defendant-Appellant.
__________________________________________________________________

      Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Linn County, Nicholas L. Scott, District

Associate Judge.

      Keith Woods appeals his conviction for assault causing bodily injury.

AFFRIMED.

      Mark C. Meyer, Cedar Rapids, for appellant.

      Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Timothy M. Hau, Assistant Attorney

General, for appellee.

      Considered by Greer, P.J., and Schumacher and Ahlers, JJ.
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SCHUMACHER, Judge.

        Keith Woods appeals his conviction for assault causing bodily injury. He

argues that the district court abused its discretion in failing to allow cross-

examination of two of the State’s witnesses concerning a prior civil action and that

the verdict was against the weight of the evidence. We conclude Woods did not

preserve his evidentiary claim and the district court did not abuse its discretion in

denying Woods’s motion for a new trial. Accordingly, we affirm.

   I.      Background Facts and Prior Proceedings

        From the evidence presented at trial a rational jury could find these facts.

Andrew Miller, Jeffrey Booze, and Woods worked at a manufacturing company.

Both Miller and Booze were second-shift supervisors.          Booze was Woods’s

supervisor.

        Booze encountered difficulties in his supervision of Woods. Woods was

not always at his work station after he clocked in, he took long restroom breaks,

and he watched kickboxing while at his desk. Woods’s behaviors led to various

interactions between himself and Booze. Booze classified Woods’s behavior as

insubordination. Woods previously complained to the company’s human resource

department that Booze followed him into the restroom.

        On May 6, 2021, Booze went to the restroom prior to his break to wash his

hands. Booze washed his hands in the sink, which was located directly across

from the restroom stalls. As he finished washing his hands, Booze heard a voice

from within one of the closed stalls state: “Following me into the bathroom again,

huh?” Before Booze could respond, one of the bathroom stall doors flew open

and slammed into the wall. Woods exited the stall and threw a drink at Booze.
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Booze told Woods twice he needed to go home. Woods refused and then struck

Booze in the face with his fist. Booze fell backward, hit the wall, and landed on

his back on the floor. Woods then got on top of Booze, grabbed his shirt, and

began punching him repeatedly in the face. Woods yelled, “I’m going to fucking

kill you.” Booze yelled for help. Woods struck Booze in the face about fifteen to

twenty times.

          Miller, hearing the commotion, entered the restroom. He observed Woods

sitting on top of Booze, his arm cocked as if ready to strike again. Booze,

underneath Woods, had a bloodied face and had marks from blows to his

cheekbone. The altercation stopped shortly after Miller entered the restroom.

Woods eventually exited the workplace. He was terminated from his employment

and a warrant issued for his arrest based on a charge of assault causing bodily

injury.

          At a pre-trial hearing, defense counsel advised the court of Woods’s intent

to question Miller and Booze about a civil case for impeachment purposes.1 The

court ruled that cross-examination concerning this civil case was impermissible.

At trial, the State called three witnesses including Miller, Booze, and the

investigating officer. Woods testified, asserting a self-defense argument. The

jury found Woods guilty as charged. He filed a motion for a new trial, which the

court denied. Woods now appeals.

1 From our record, it does not appear that either Woods or Booze were a party to

the civil lawsuit.
                                           4

   II.       -Standard of Review

          Rulings on motions for a new trial that assert a verdict is contrary to the

weight of the evidence are reviewed for an abuse of discretion; however, rulings

on a motion for a new trial are reviewed for errors at law when there is a claim

that the district court failed to apply the proper standard in ruling on that motion.

Iowa R. Crim. P. 2.24(2)(b)(6); State v. Wickes, 910 N.W.2d 554, 563–64 (Iowa

2018). As Woods does not claim the district court applied the wrong standard,

we review Woods’s claim under an abuse of discretion standard. And we also

review a ruling excluding evidence as irrelevant for an abuse of discretion. State

v. Walker, 935 N.W.2d 874, 877 (Iowa 2019).

   III.      Analysis

   A. Cross-examination About a Prior Civil Action

          Woods claims that the court improperly excluded cross-examination of

Miller and Booze about a prior civil action. The State contends Woods failed to

preserve error on this claim. We agree. Because Woods argues that evidence

was improperly excluded, it was necessary for him to make an offer of proof to

preserve error. See Iowa R. Evid. 5.103(a)(2).

          To preserve error when evidence is excluded, the party must “inform[ ] the

court of its substance by an offer of proof, unless the substance was apparent

from the context.” Id. “An offer of proof provides a record because the reviewing

court cannot predicate error upon speculation as to what testimony would have

come in the record had the objection not been sustained.” Strong v. Rothamel,

523 N.W.2d 597, 599 (Iowa Ct. App. 1994).
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       The court excluded testimony on the prior civil action, and Woods failed to

make an offer of proof. Woods does not argue that the substance was apparent

from the context, and we conclude it is not. Woods sought to cross-examine two

of the State’s witnesses on a civil lawsuit. From the record, what we know about

the civil case is that it was “a lawsuit that was then pending by a former employee

alleging discrimination and wrongful termination wherein Mr. Miller was named

individually and has specific facts alleged against him.”

       The civil case was filed in September 2020. While it was pending at the

time of the assault, it was dismissed with prejudice by the time of Woods’s criminal

trial. Woods asserted it would help the jury make credibility determinations, but it

is not at all apparent what the substance of the evidence would be. We do not

know the facts. We do not know the knowledge the witnesses have of the case.

And we do not know what line of questioning Woods would pursue. We can only

speculate on what might have been said. “Without an offer of proof, we can do

no more than speculate about the substance of [the] proposed testimony.” State

v. Lacey, 968 N.W.2d 792, 806 (Iowa 2021). This is insufficient to preserve error.

See id. We conclude Woods failed to preserve error on this issue.

   B. Motion for a New Trial

       Woods moved for new trial, contending that the jury’s verdict was against

the weight of the evidence.2 “On a weight-of-the-evidence claim, appellate review

is limited to a review of the exercise of discretion by the trial court, not of the

underlying question of whether the verdict is against the weight of the evidence.”

2 Woods’s motion for new trial raised three other grounds that are not a part of

this appeal.
                                           6

State v. Reeves, 670 N.W.2d 199, 203 (Iowa 2003). For there to be an abuse of

discretion, the trial court must have “exercised its discretion on grounds or for

reasons clearly untenable or to an extent clearly unreasonable.”                Id.   In

determining whether there was an abuse of discretion in a weight-of-the-evidence

decision, the “appellate court is limited to examining the evidence produced at

trial to determine whether the district court’s determination that the evidence does

or does not ‘preponderate heavily against the verdict’ is a clear and manifest

abuse of discretion.” Id. (quoting United States v. Ashworth, 836 F.2d 260, 266

(6th Cir. 1988)). It is not our place to determine the credibility of witnesses or

reweigh the evidence. Id.

       When a verdict “is against the weight of the evidence, the trial court must

grant a motion for new trial.” State v. Ellis, 578 N.W.2d 655, 656 (Iowa 1998).

Under the weight-of-the-evidence standard, the trial court should consider if “more

credible evidence supports the verdict rendered than supports the alternative

verdict.” State v. Ary, 877 N.W.2d 686, 706 (Iowa 2016) (citation and internal

quotations omitted). The weight-of-the-evidence standard allows the court to

consider the credibility of witnesses, but it requires that the verdict be weighed

against its alternative. Id. In ruling on the motion for new trial, the court, in part,

stated:

               The evidence—I would classify it as overwhelming in this
       case. In my 17 years in the criminal justice system, there were
       probably more facts that garnered a conviction here than I’ve seen
       in a jury trial, so I don’t find the verdict was against the weight of the
       evidence at all.

       In analyzing Woods’s weight-of-the-evidence claim, the trial court needed

to consider whether more credible evidence supported the verdict. In other words,
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did more credible evidence support the fact that Woods committed the assault

causing bodily injury than the alternate theory—that he did not commit the assault.

On our review of the record, including the witness testimony and exhibits, we

conclude the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion for a

new trial.

   IV.       Conclusion

         Having determined that error was not preserved on Woods’s exclusion-of-

evidence claim and that there was no abuse of discretion in the district court’s

denial of Woods’s motion for a new trial, we affirm.

   AFFIRMED.