Court Opinion

ID: 9911654
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-12-20 17:04:18.170807+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:53:19.769893
License: Public Domain

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

                                     No. 22-0334
                              Filed December 20, 2023

STATE OF IOWA,
     Plaintiff-Appellee,

vs.

DEAARON JACQUIA SIMPSON,
     Defendant-Appellant.
________________________________________________________________

      Appeal    from    the    Iowa   District   Court   for   Dubuque   County,

Monica Zrinyi Ackley, Judge.

      A criminal defendant appeals his convictions for domestic abuse assault

causing bodily injury and assault causing serious injury. AFFIRMED.

      Chris Raker of Alliance Law Office, P.C., East Dubuque, Illinois, for

appellant.

      Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Genevieve Reinkoester, Assistant

Attorney General, for appellee.

      Heard by Greer, P.J., and Ahlers and Buller, JJ.
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BULLER, Judge.

          A jury found DeAaron Simpson guilty of domestic abuse assault causing

bodily injury and assault causing serious injury for beating his live-in girlfriend. On

appeal, Simpson claims a variety of errors, nearly all of which are waived or

unpreserved. We affirm.

          I.    Background Facts and Proceedings

          Twenty-two-year-old S.M. moved out of her parents’ home and into

Simpson’s apartment. S.M. had been close with her family but virtually cut ties

with them after moving in with Simpson.

          A few months after she moved, S.M. sent a message to a family group-text

with her mother, father, and one of her brothers:

          Please do not respond….Add Steve to this group [as] well!!!!! I need
          help getting my stuff out of here because I am in a very controlling
          abusive relationship….DO NOT FUCKING RESPOND. First stop is
          to jump my Jeep because it is dead.

S.M.’s mother called the police, and she and S.M.’s father drove to where they

believed S.M. was living with Simpson.

          S.M.’s mother showed police the message, and they knocked on the

apartment door. S.M. answered, and police observed her to be “visibly upset,”

“crying,” and “scared,” with “bruises to her face and eyes and looked to be

assaulted.” Body-camera footage corroborated that description, as did S.M.’s

family.

          S.M., through tears, told police Simpson assaulted her the night before and

“this happened more than once.” She said Simpson punched her in the face, head,

hand, and body multiple times with closed fists. And she explained that injuries to
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her hands were from holding them in front of her face for protection while Simpson

punched her. Police later opined the injuries were consistent with “defensive

wounds.”

       S.M. described “yelling” and “begging” for Simpson to stop beating her. But

she said Simpson only stopped because her dog Lucky started barking. S.M.

emphasized she did not want law enforcement involved or charges filed. She told

one officer she wasn’t “pressing no charges” because she “wasn’t a snitch.”

       With S.M.’s permission, police entered the apartment and found Simpson

sleeping. After waking, Simpson denied assaulting S.M. but confirmed she was

his live-in girlfriend. He told police “I don’t hit women,” and officers arrested him.

       S.M.’s family took her to the hospital, where she told medical providers she

was there because of a “domestic” and she “got beat up by [her] partner.” Medical

records documented S.M.’s reports of pain, significant bruising and swelling, and

a fractured left hand.

       The Dubuque County Attorney charged Simpson by trial information with

one count of domestic abuse assault causing bodily injury, a serious misdemeanor

in violation of Iowa Code section 708.2A(2)(b) (2021), and one count of assault

causing serious injury, a class “D” felony in violation of Iowa Code section 708.2(4).

A no-contact order prohibited contact between Simpson and S.M.

       S.M. did not cooperate with police or prosecutors in the lead-up to trial. She

eventually gave a discovery deposition, in which she claimed to not recall the

attack and admitted she was pregnant with Simpson’s child, apparently conceived

in violation of the no-contact order. The State chose to not call S.M. as a witness

at trial, and Simpson tried to subpoena her without success.
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       Simpson eventually offered S.M.’s discovery deposition into evidence, and

the court admitted it over the State’s objection. There was a disjointed back-and-

forth over whether the text-message S.M. sent her family would be included

because it was a deposition exhibit. The court ultimately admitted the entirety of

the discovery deposition, including the exhibit.

       Simpson testified in his own defense. Because Simpson told police he did

not “hit women” on a video shown to the jury, the prosecutor impeached him with

a prior conviction for assaulting a woman.         The prosecutor also impeached

Simpson’s testimony he was employed at the time of arrest by pointing to the

financial affidavit where Simpson swore that he had no income that year.

       The jury found Simpson guilty as charged, and the court sentenced him to

prison. The court also, for a third time, denied S.M.’s request to dissolve the no-

contact order. The court explained that it was “very concerned for the well-being

and the safety of the victim in this case” in light of Simpson’s conduct—including

but not limited to multiple violations of the no-contact order. Simpson appeals.

       II.    Standard of Review

       We generally review preserved evidentiary claims for abuse of discretion.

State v. Neiderbach, 837 N.W.2d 180, 190 (Iowa 2013). We review preserved

hearsay challenges for correction of errors at law. Id. And we review preserved

prosecutorial-misconduct claims for an abuse of discretion. Id.

       III.   Discussion

       Simpson makes a variety of claims relating to admission of S.M.’s

discovery-deposition transcript, the impeachment based on his financial affidavit,
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and alleged prosecutorial misconduct. We find all these claims plagued by various

waivers and failures to preserve error, and we address each separately.

       A. The Deposition Transcript

       Simpson’s first claim on appeal, as we understand it, is that the district court

should have found S.M. “unavailable” and admitted the transcribed discovery

deposition.   Although we express no opinion on the merits of admitting the

transcript over the State’s objection, we find Simpson cannot complain about an

exhibit he successfully sought to admit. See State v. Trane, 984 N.W.2d 429, 435

(Iowa 2023) (finding defendant’s elicitation of evidence waived any objection to the

court considering it); McCracken v. Edward D. Jones & Co., 445 N.W.2d 375, 378

(Iowa Ct. App. 1989) (“[I]t is elementary a litigant cannot complain of error which

he has invited or to which he has assented.”).

       To the extent Simpson urges a claim related to his decision to testify, we

find this argument was never made at trial.           See Patchette v. State, 374

N.W.2d 397, 401 (Iowa 1985) (“We cannot consider an issue for the first time on

appeal, even if it is of constitutional dimension.”). And to the extent Simpson’s

appellate brief includes a passing reference to reading the deposition aloud instead

of submitting it as an exhibit, he cites no legal authority in support of this claim,

and we deem it waived. See Iowa R. App. P. 6.903(2)(g)(3) (requiring legal

authority to support contentions).

       Given the murky record, we assume without deciding that a hearsay

objection to the text-message exhibit was preserved and adequately briefed on

appeal. We conclude the statement was an excited utterance. See Iowa R.

Evid. 5.803(2) (defining an excited utterance as “relating to a startling event or
                                         6

condition, made while the declarant was under the stress of excitement that it

caused”). The text message included an expletive, five exclamation points, and a

sentence in all capital letters. These are strong indicia of an excited state. See

Morten v. State, 215 A.3d 846, 851 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. 2019) (quoting Professor

Irving Younger’s explanation of an excited utterance in his famous lecture series:

“It begins with ‘My God’ and ends with an exclamation point!”). Any doubt as to

whether S.M.’s excited state persisted is dispelled here by the unanimous witness

accounts from family members and police, corroborated by body-camera

recordings, that indicate S.M. was still visibly distraught when police arrived soon

after the message was sent.        See State v. Atwood, 602 N.W.2d 775, 782

(Iowa 1999) (setting forth factors to evaluate excited utterances); State v.

Stafford, 23 N.W.2d 832, 836–37 (Iowa 1946) (finding a statement made fourteen

hours after an event qualified as an excited utterance). And even if the text

message was not admissible under an exception to hearsay, overwhelming

evidence of Simpson’s guilt renders any error harmless, in part because the jury

heard substantially similar statements by S.M. on body-cam recordings played at

trial without objection. See State v. Elliott, 806 N.W.2d 660, 669 (Iowa 2011)

(considering hearsay evidence in context of cumulative evidence and harmless

error).

          B. The Financial Affidavit

          Simpson next claims the district court abused its discretion under Iowa

Rules of Evidence 5.401 (relevance) and 5.403 (substantially more unfairly

prejudicial than probative) when it permitted the prosecutor to impeach Simpson

with reference to statements in his financial affidavit. These objections were not
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made below, and Simpson did not obtain a ruling. We cannot consider the alleged

errors.     See Meier v. Senecaut, 641 N.W.2d 532, 537 (Iowa 2002) (“It is a

fundamental doctrine of appellate review that issues must ordinarily be both raised

and decided by the district court before we will decide them on appeal.”).

          C. Prosecutorial Misconduct

          Simpson’s last claim asserts prosecutorial misconduct because the State

used his criminal history to impeach his statement that he did not “hit women.” The

only arguable objections made below were that Simpson did not believe the State

should mention that his prior conviction involved a sexual assault and he wanted

the prosecutor to mention the date of the offense. The prosecutor limited the

examination as requested at the direction or suggestion of the court. No objection

to prosecutorial misconduct was made below and Simpson did not move for a

mistrial. Error was not preserved. State v. Krogmann, 804 N.W.2d 518, 526

(Iowa 2011) (“[A defendant] cannot obtain a new trial based on prosecutorial

misconduct when he failed to move for a mistrial at the time.”).

          IV.   Disposition

          Finding no reversible error properly before us, and recognizing

overwhelming evidence of Simpson’s guilt, we affirm his convictions.

          AFFIRMED.