Court Opinion

ID: 9527688
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:32:52.834158+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:26:04.311486
License: Public Domain

CARTER, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent. If the district court had exercised its discretion to refuse to issue a writ of certiorari to review the acts of the judicial magistrate in the present case, this would have been fully justified. I believe, however, that the district court was wrong *120in deciding the case on the ground that it had no discretion to issue a writ of certiora-ri because a deferred judgment had been granted.
In upholding the district court’s determination that deferred judgments may never be reviewed by certiorari, the majority opinion proceeds on two theories: (1) that this would be an inappropriate use of the writ of certiorari, and (2) that plaintiff has waived any right to review the magistrate’s finding of guilt by consenting to a deferred judgment. I submit that neither of these theories is tenable.
With respect to the general authority of the district court to review acts of a judicial magistrate by means of a writ of certiorari, Iowa Rule of Civil Procedure 309 contemplates that the district court, acting through a district judge, may issue writs of certiorari, where appropriate, for this purpose. As the majority concedes, one of the primary criteria for issuance of a writ of certiorari is that no other means of review is available. Plaintiff’s case meets this test completely. It is uncontroverted in the present case that appeal is not available to review the magistrate’s determination that plaintiff is guilty of the offense charged. See State v. Anderson, 246 N.W.2d 277, 278-79 (Iowa 1976). Indeed, it seems axiomatic that, if appeal were available, there would be no need to seek a writ of certiorari.
The majority argues that notwithstanding the absence of another remedy certiorari is inappropriate because (a) in the present case it will not serve to avoid unnecessary litigation and (b) the writ is sought at the conclusion of the proceeding rather than at some intermediate step in the judicial process. Neither of these circumstances constitutes a valid ground under our case law for holding that certiorari is unavailable to plaintiff. The element of avoiding unnecessary litigation relates to a limited category of cases. It concerns those cases in which the choice facing the court is whether to grant a discretionary review at intermediate stage in the proceedings or to require the party seeking review to await the outcome of the proceedings at which time review may be had as of right upon final judgment. It is analogous to the standard often applied in granting interlocutory appeals requiring a showing that immediate appellate resolution of the issue will materially advance the progress of the litigation. See Banco Mortgage Co. v. Steil, 351 N.W.2d 784, 787 (Iowa 1984). This standard has no applicability to the present case because plaintiff’s review must be now or not at all.
There is no support in our case law for the majority’s suggestion that certiorari review is inappropriate because it is sought at the conclusion of the litigation rather than at some intermediate stage. Certiorari review is routinely available to review convictions and punishment for contempt at the conclusion of the litigation and to review orders of the district court on attorney fee applications made at the conclusion of both the primary litigation and the hearing on entitlement to compensation.
Equally untenable is the majority’s contention that, by affirmatively consenting to the entry of a deferred judgment, the plaintiff has waived any right to seek judicial review of the underlying finding of guilt. That conclusion is based in part on a misinterpretation of the rationale underlying our decision in Anderson, 246 N.W.2d at 278-79. That case held that there was no right of appeal from a deferred judgment. This holding was posited squarely on the ground that the absence of a sentence constituting a final judgment precludes a right of appeal under the statutes which create our appellate jurisdiction. After concluding that a right of appeal was not available under the applicable statutes, the court in Anderson did observe that, because a deferred judgment cannot be entered without a defendant’s consent, the defendant may, in some cases, face a hard choice. Waiver was not a ground for the decision, however, and it in no way passed upon the *121propriety of certiorari as a means of review.1
I submit that there is no established principle which supports the court’s waiver theory and there is a strong principle which refutes it. Sentencing in criminal cases is entrusted to the sound discretion of the sentencing judge. The sentencing judge has a duty to render that sentence which the judge determines to be the most appropriate under the available sentencing options. A defendant in a criminal case has a vital interest in obtaining the best result available under the law and the evidence with respect to both the issue of guilt and the appropriate sentence. Where the sentencing judge has determined that deferred judgment is the most appropriate choice, it does not advance the cause of justice that a defendant must accept less than the most appropriate sentencing option in order to seek appellate relief with respect to prejudicial error which may have produced an unlawful determination of guilt.
We have recognized that the scope of the writ of certiorari under our rules of civil procedure and appellate procedure represents an enlargement of the common law writ in order to provide a means of review “when, without it, substantial justice could not be had.” Hohl v. Board of Education, 250 Iowa 502, 508-09, 94 N.W.2d 787, 791 (1959). See also Note, Scope of Common Law Certiorari and Some Statutory Changes, 19 Iowa L.Rev. 187, 144 (1933). To deny the availability of such a discretionary review in all deferred judgment cases is to unnecessarily paint ourselves into a corner from which it may become impossible to correct a substantial injustice.
The potential for this occurring in cases where deferred judgments are granted has been greatly increased by legislative changes increasing the collateral consequences of this type of sentencing disposition in certain cases. See, e.g., Iowa Code §§ 321.281(2)(c), (6) (1985) (for purposes of determining guilt of second or third offense, deferred judgments are to be counted; grant of deferred judgment requires mandatory license revocation). I would hold that in a proper case the discretionary writ of certiorari is available as a means for review of judicial action which terminates in the granting of a deferred judgment.
McCORMICK and WOLLE, JJ, join this dissent.

. The Anderson decision does imply that certio-rari may have been available in that case to review certain aspects of the litigation, notwithstanding the grant of a deferred judgment. Id. at 279.