Court Opinion

ID: 9926349
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-24 17:05:03.873767+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:43.707018
License: Public Domain

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

                                     No. 22-1468
                               Filed January 24, 2024

STATE OF IOWA,
     Plaintiff-Appellee,

vs.

CHAD MICHAEL VICE,
     Defendant-Appellant.
________________________________________________________________

      Appeal    from     the   Iowa   District   Court   for   Lee   (North)   County,

Michael J. Schilling, Judge.

      A defendant appeals his conviction for delivery of five grams or less of

methamphetamine. AFFIRMED.

      Christopher Kragnes Sr., Des Moines (until withdrawal), and Kent A.

Simmons, Bettendorf, for appellant.

      Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Zachary Miller, Assistant Attorney

General, for appellee.

      Considered by Tabor, P.J., and Badding and Chicchelly, JJ.
                                          2

BADDING, Judge.

       “Trust no one, even a close friend.” This is the lesson that Chad Vice says

he learned after his best friend became a confidential informant and set up a

controlled buy. After two years of continuances, the district court found Vice guilty

of delivery of five grams or less of methamphetamine following a bench trial. Vice

appeals, claiming (1) the “State failed to disprove entrapment beyond a reasonable

doubt” because the “confidential informant was a close personal friend of” his

and (2) the district court “abused its discretion and violated [his] due process rights

when finding good cause to extend the proceedings under COVID-19 Iowa

Supreme Court orders.” We affirm.

I.     Entrapment

       Vice’s first claim is a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence, which we

review for correction of errors at law.       State v. Burns, 988 N.W.2d 352, 370

(Iowa 2023). We give high deference to the verdict and “view the evidence ‘in the

light most favorable to the State, including all reasonable inferences that may be

fairly drawn from the evidence.’” State v. Ortiz, 905 N.W.2d 174, 180 (Iowa 2017)

(citation omitted).

       In that light, the record shows that in 2019, a woman named L.G. began

working as a confidential informant for the Lee County Narcotics Task Force. She

was given the chance to “work off” the felony charges she was facing by doing

controlled buys. L.G. explained: “[T]hey want [you to] do controlled buys for drugs

on people, people that I knew or that, you know, that they would be interested in.

And, you know, I told him a few people I could do.” One of those people was her

friend, Chad Vice.
                                         3

       L.G. testified that she met Vice “through a mutual friend. We weren’t close

friends, but we were—became closer friends, you know just—You know, we

trusted each other, you know.” They knew each other for “a year, maybe two”

before the controlled buy, according to Vice. He “considered her to be the best

friend [he] had.” They used methamphetamine together and talked daily about “life

in general.” L.G. let Vice use her car, loaned him money, and picked him up from

jail after he was arrested on separate charges. He trusted her enough to ask her

opinion about a plea deal for those charges and proposed that she move into his

house to help take care of his grandma if he went to prison.1 Vice described L.G.

at trial as “an all-out,” true friend.

       On April 8, L.G. contacted her primary handler on the task force, Deputy

Robert Juarez, to let him know that she could buy drugs from Vice that evening.

At trial, L.G. could not remember how that pre-buy discussion with Vice came

about: “I’m not sure if I asked [Vice] if he could help me out or maybe he hit me up

first. It’s been so long, I don’t remember the whole conversation. But, I mean,

[Vice] said he could help me out,” which she testified meant that he could get her

methamphetamine. Later that day, Deputy Juarez met with L.G. to set up the buy.

She told the task force that she could get “a ball, which is 3.5 grams” of

methamphetamine from Vice for $100. The task force gave L.G. the money and a

recording device.      L.G. then drove to Vice’s residence.     She arrived there

at 6:57 p.m. and left after completing the controlled buy at 7:45 p.m.

1 Vice flip-flopped several times in his testimony about whether it was his mother

or his grandmother that L.G. might live with.
                                           4

       A grainy video from the recording device L.G. was given was admitted as

evidence at trial. When it starts, L.G. can be heard saying that she doesn’t want

to know who the methamphetamine is coming from. Vice asks L.G. if they could

split the ball she wanted to obtain, but L.G. replies that she only has $100. They

then seem to agree that Vice will take some of her ball. Vice leaves the room for

about three minutes. When he returns, Vice hands L.G. a bag with a white

crystalline substance. He leaves again and comes back with a scale. They weigh

the product and separate it. Vice packages L.G.’s share, ties it off, and hands it to

her. L.G. testified that she gave Vice the $100, although she couldn’t remember

when. After the buy, L.G. drove Vice to a nearby friend’s house and then met up

with members of the task force. The drugs she gave them tested positive for

methamphetamine and weighed 4.54 grams.

       At his trial for delivery of five grams or less of methamphetamine, 2 Vice

testified that he was entrapped.         He explained that he only obtained the

methamphetamine because of his friendship with L.G. and desire to help her out.

Vice testified that “I don’t sell methamphetamine; I use it.” In its written verdict, the

district court “[a]ssum[ed] that Vice raised a fact issue on the defense of

entrapment” but then concluded “that the State of Iowa established by proof

beyond a reasonable doubt that [L.G.] did not entrap Vice.”               See State v.

Tomlinson, 243 N.W.2d 551, 553 (Iowa 1976) (explaining this burden). On appeal,

Vice claims the State failed to meet its burden. We conclude otherwise.

2 This was charged as a second or subsequent offense with a habitual-offender

enhancement.
                                         5

       “We use an objective test to determine if there has been entrapment.” State

v. Davis, No. 12-0172, 2013 WL 750457, at *2 (Iowa Ct. App. Feb. 27, 2013).

“[E]ntrapment occurs when a law enforcement agent induces the commission of

the offense, using persuasion or other means likely to cause normally law-abiding

persons to commit it. Conduct merely affording a person an opportunity to commit

an offense is not entrapment.” Tomlinson, 243 N.W.2d at 553. “[E]ntrapment must

involve the use of excessive incitement, urging, persuasion, or temptation by law

enforcement agents.”3 State v. Babers, 514 N.W.2d 79, 83 (Iowa 1994). Such

excessive inducements might include “extreme pleas of desperate illness”;

“appeals based on sympathy, pity, or close personal friendship”; or “offers of

inordinate sums of money.” State v. Mullen, 216 N.W.2d 375, 383 (Iowa 1974).

       All we have here is the friendship between L.G. and Vice. At most, the

evidence shows that L.G. contacted Vice and asked if he could get her

methamphetamine, and Vice agreed. While Vice says L.G. used “extraordinary

inducement . . . to help her obtain methamphetamine,” he does not identify what

that extraordinary inducement was beyond their friendship.          There was no

evidence that Vice required any “incitement, urging, persuasion, or temptation” by

L.G. to commit the crime, let alone to an excessive extent. See Babers, 514

N.W.2d at 83. And though they were friends, L.G. did not bait Vice’s commission

3 L.G., acting as a confidential informant, qualifies as a law enforcement agent for

entrapment purposes. See State v. Gibb, 303 N.W.2d 673, 686 (Iowa 1981)
(“[W]hen the government stakes a third party with money as a free agent to buy
drugs, it cannot disclaim the third party’s conduct in the transaction.”); State v.
Trost, 244 N.W.2d 556, 558 (Iowa 1976) (“If law enforcement officers use an
individual to help them arrange the commission of a crime by another person, the
officers cannot disassociate themselves from the inducement such individual
offers in the course of his efforts for the officers.”).
                                           6

of the crime with any extreme appeal relating to their friendship. See Mullen, 216

N.W.2d at 383. She just asked him to help her get methamphetamine, and he

obliged. L.G. did nothing more than afford Vice the opportunity to commit the

crime, which is not entrapment. Tomlinson, 243 N.W.2d at 553. We accordingly

conclude that the State met its burden to disprove entrapment.

II.    Motion to Dismiss

       The morning of the trial on January 25, 2022, Vice moved to dismiss the

case for violating the one-year speedy-trial deadline in Iowa Rule of Criminal

Procedure 2.33(2)(c). He had been charged by trial information in May 2019. The

next month, Vice filed a written arraignment, in which he demanded his ninety-day

speedy-trial right under rule 2.33(2)(b). A trial was set for early August but, in July,

Vice waived his ninety-day speedy-trial right and asked to continue the trial. After

a couple more continuances, and Vice’s jury-trial waiver, the trial was reset for

April 22, 2020. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit. On April 8, the court ordered

that the bench trial be rescheduled due to Iowa Supreme Court orders in response

to the pandemic.4 In a separate order entered on April 21, consistent with the then-

prevailing supreme court order, the district court stated “the one year deadline in

4 Just a few days prior, on April 2, the supreme court ordered: “Any criminal nonjury

trial that is scheduled to begin before June 1, 2020[,] shall be continued and reset
to a date no earlier than June 1.” Iowa Sup. Ct. Supervisory Order, In re Ongoing
Provisions       for  Coronavirus/COVID-19        Impact    on     Court    Services
¶ 6 (Apr. 2, 2020), available at https://www.iowacourts.gov/collections/485/files/1
076/embedDocument/. The order also repeated the supreme court’s conclusion
that the pandemic constituted good cause for trial postponements, so the ninety-
day speedy-trial deadline in rule 2.33(2)(b) would be expanded to one-hundred-
twenty days and would restart on July 13, and the one-year speedy-trial deadline
in rule 2.33(2)(c) would restart on April 20. Id. ¶ 8.
                                         7

rule 2.33(2)(c) shall commence from April 20, 2020.”            After several more

continuances, the trial was ultimately held on January 25, 2022.

       In support of his oral motion to dismiss, Vice argued his one-year speedy-

trial right was violated because the district court’s April 21, 2020 order stated his

right to trial within one year would commence on April 20. Vice claimed that the

district court’s order trumped the supreme court’s later orders extending the

deadline. The last of those orders stated that “[f]or any criminal case in which an

indictment or information has been or is filed prior to February 1, 2021, the one-

year deadline in rule 2.33(2)(c) shall commence from February 1, 2021 or the date

of arraignment, whichever is later.”     Iowa Sup. Ct. Supervisory Order, In re

Ongoing Provisions for Coronavirus/COVID-19 Impact on Court Services

¶ 3 (Nov. 10, 2020), available at https://www.iowacourts.gov/collections/583/files/

1243/embedDocument/. The order also noted that, “[i]n addition to the speedy trial

extensions set forth in paragraph 3, above, the court finds the COVID-19 pandemic

constitutes good cause within the meaning of Iowa R. Crim. P. 2.33 for any

additional continuances or extensions of time necessitated by this order.” Id. ¶ 4.

       After taking the motion under advisement, the district court denied it in the

written verdict. The court found the November 2020 supervisory order controlled,

and the pandemic provided good cause for the delay. On appeal, Vice claims this

was an abuse of the court’s discretion.5 We disagree. See State v. Watson, 970

5 Vice also claims the court “violated [his] due process rights when finding good

cause to extend proceedings under COVID-19 Iowa Supreme Court orders.” While
the State doesn’t challenge error preservation on that claim, we conclude it was
not preserved because Vice did not raise a due process challenge when he made
his oral motion to dismiss the morning of trial. See Taft v. Iowa Dist. Ct., 828
N.W.2d 309 , 322 (Iowa 2013) (“Even issues implicating constitutional rights must
                                            8

N.W.2d 302, 307 (Iowa 2022) (reviewing rulings on motion to dismiss implicating

the good-cause requirement in Iowa Rule of Criminal Procedure 2.33(2) for an

abuse of discretion).

       “It is the public policy of the State of Iowa that criminal prosecutions be

concluded at the earliest possible time consistent with a fair trial to both parties.”

Iowa R. Crim. P. 2.33(2). For a defendant’s one-year speedy-trial right, “[a]ll

criminal cases must be brought to trial within one year after the defendant’s initial

arraignment . . . unless an extension is granted by the court, upon a showing of

good cause.” Id. r. 2.33(2)(c). As detailed above, the supreme court’s November

2020 supervisory order provided that, for all cases with a trial information predating

February    1,   2021—which      included       Vice’s—“the   one-year   deadline   in

rule 2.33(2)(c) shall commence from February 1, 2021 or the date of arraignment,

whichever is later.” So the State had one year from that date to bring Vice to trial,

and it did. The supreme court repeated in multiple supervisory orders that the

pandemic constituted good cause under rule 2.33 for any trial postponements. The

district court followed that guidance in its ruling denying the motion to dismiss. We

accordingly find no abuse of discretion.

       AFFIRMED.

be presented to and ruled upon by the district court in order to preserve error for
appeal.”). He did raise a due process claim in a pro se motion to dismiss roughly
six months after the court issued its verdict but shortly before sentencing. The
court, however, declined to consider the motion because it was filed pro se while
Vice was represented by counsel. See Iowa Code § 814.6A (2022).