Court Opinion

ID: 9916806
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-01-10 18:05:25.122052+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:26:04.540807
License: Public Domain

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

                                  No. 22-1602
                            Filed January 10, 2024

STATE OF IOWA,
     Plaintiff-Appellee,

vs.

JACOB LEE ANTHONY DENNISTON,
     Defendant-Appellant.
________________________________________________________________

      Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Black Hawk County, James D. Coil,

Judge.

      Jacob Denniston appeals after a jury found him guilty of indecent exposure.

AFFIRMED.

      Jane M. White of Gribble Boles Stewart & Witosky, Des Moines, for

appellant.

      Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Sheryl Soich, Assistant Attorney

General, for appellee.

      Considered by Schumacher, P.J., Chicchelly, J., and Doyle, S.J.*

      *Senior judge assigned by order pursuant to Iowa Code section 602.9206

(2024).
                                        2

DOYLE, Senior Judge.

       Jacob Denniston appeals after a jury found him guilty of indecent exposure.

He challenges both the sufficiency and weight of the evidence showing his guilt.

Because substantial evidence supports the jury’s finding that Denniston was

masturbating in a public place and Denniston failed to preserve error on his

challenge to the weight of the evidence, we affirm.

       In March 2022, Denniston entered the women’s restroom at a Kwik Star in

Waterloo and locked the door. He remained inside the restroom for three hours,

preventing employees from performing restroom checks every half hour as

directed. An employee knocked on the door and called out to see if someone was

inside, but Denniston did not answer. Believing that someone accidentally locked

the door with the bathroom unoccupied, the store manager gave an employee the

universal key to unlock the door. When the employee opened the door, he saw

Denniston lying on the floor under the sink, naked from the waist down. The

employee testified that Denniston’s “[p]rivate areas were out,” Denniston’s hand

was moving over “his private area,” and “he also had a porn magazine between

his legs.” The employee quickly left the restroom, and the manager called the

police. An officer arrived and found the restroom door locked, and Denniston again

failed to respond to attempts at contact. After the manager unlocked the door, the

officer found Denniston lying naked on the floor with one hand covering his

testicles and the other hand covering his penis.

       The State charged Denniston with indecent exposure under Iowa Code

section 709.9(2)(a) (2022). At trial, the court instructed the jury Denniston was

guilty if the State proved:
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             1. On or about the 25th day of March 2022, the defendant
       masturbated.
             2. The defendant did so in a public place.
             3. The defendant did so in the presence of another.

Denniston challenges the sufficiency of the evidence showing that (1) he was in

public and (2) he was masturbating.

       We review sufficiency-of-the-evidence claims for correction of errors at law.

See State v. Lacey, 968 N.W.2d 792, 800 (Iowa 2021). We view the evidence and

all reasonable inferences that we can draw from it in the light most favorable to the

State. Id. We are “highly deferential to the jury’s verdict” and “affirm the jury’s

verdict when the verdict is supported by substantial evidence.” Id. Substantial

evidence is evidence that may convince a rational person of the defendant’s guilt

beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. We are not concerned with whether the evidence

would support a different finding; our concern is whether the evidence supports the

finding the jury made. Id.

       The focus of Denniston’s appeal is whether he was in “public.” He argues

that after locking the door, a person has an expectation of privacy in a public

restroom. But as the State notes, the “expectation of privacy” analysis applies in

determining whether the government has infringed on a person’s constitutional

right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures. That analysis does not

bear on whether one is in a public place. See State v. Booth, 670 N.W.2d 209,

216 (Iowa 2003) (Carter, J., dissenting) (stating that the expectation-of-privacy

analysis “is in no way determinative of a right to admission on the part of the

general public”).
                                         4

       Substantial evidence shows that Denniston was in a public place. The trial

court instructed the jury, “The phrase ‘public place’ is defined as any place,

building, or conveyance to which the public has or is permitted access.”1 Because

Denniston did not object to the jury instruction defining “public place,” “he cannot

complain that the evidence was insufficient to support a legal proposition contrary

to the one instructed to the jury.” State v. Crawford, 974 N.W.2d 510, 521 (Iowa

2022). The Kwik Star store manager testified that the public has access to the

store’s restrooms twenty-four hours per day.         The ability to lock the door

temporarily does not change the public nature of the restrooms. The keys to unlock

the door were not in Denniston’s possession2; they were in the possession of Kwik

Star’s manager.     By staying in the restroom for three hours and ignoring

employees’ attempts to determine whether someone was inside, the jury could

infer that Denniston anticipated someone would eventually enter. See State v.

Sullivan, No. 18-0559, 2019 WL 21144636, at *4 (Iowa Ct. App. May 15, 1999)

(concluding that “a jury could reasonably infer that Sullivan’s action of leaving the

water running in the hotel restroom with the door unlocked would bring someone

to the room to investigate,” and a reasonable person would understand that an

investigator would enter the room when no one responded to knocking or made

their presence known).

1 The same definition of “public place” is used in the statute prohibiting public

intoxication. See Iowa Code § 123.3(43) (defining “public place” as used in
chapter 123, the “Iowa Alcoholic Beverage Control Act”). The Iowa Supreme Court
has noted, “Business premises are commonly considered public places for
purposes of public intoxication statutes.” State v. Paye, 865 N.W.2d 1, 5 (Iowa
2015).
2 The employee who opened the restroom door testified, “We don’t provide a key

for our customers to use the restroom.”
                                        5

       Denniston also contends there is insufficient evidence showing he was

engaged in masturbation when the employee entered the restroom. He argues

that the employee failed to provide a specific description of what he viewed when

he opened the restroom door. We disagree. The employee testified that he saw

Denniston lying on the floor under the sink, naked from the waist down, “doing

what he was doing.” The prosecutor then asked questions to clarify:

              Q. And what you said was, “He was doing what he was doing.”
       Was what he was doing masturbating? A. Yes.
              Q. How do you know that? A. I saw it. Private areas were
       out, hands was on his private area, and he also had a porn magazine
       between his legs. . . .
              Q. And was the defendant stroking himself when you were in
       there? A. Yes.
              Q. So he was moving his hand? A. Yep.
              Q. He wasn’t just holding or covering himself? A. No.

Denniston also argues that the employee testified he was in the restroom a “very

brief moment” that lasted about two seconds is incompatible with his testimony that

he saw Denniston masturbating and “stroking” his privates. But the reason for the

employee’s quick departure was that the nature of Denniston’s act was

immediately obvious to him.3 Because the employee’s testimony provides an

ample basis for finding that Denniston was masturbating, substantial evidence

supports the jury’s verdict.

       Denniston also contends the trial court erred by denying his motion for new

trial, reiterating the same claims addressed above under a weight-of-the-evidence

3 The employee testified, “So it was like two seconds of, okay, I’m doing—and then,

you know, I saw enough. I saw enough.” The prosecutor stated, “I understand
that you weren’t just going to stand there and watch what was going on,” to which
the employee responded, “No.”
                                           6

standard. The State challenges error preservation, noting that Denniston never

raised a weight-of-the-evidence claim before the trial court.

       We agree that Denniston failed to preserve error on any claim that the

verdict is contrary to the weight of the evidence. Although Denniston’s motion for

new trial outlines several grounds for new trial, only paragraphs seven and eight

of his motion are at issue on appeal:

              7. The issue of whether or not a single public bathroom for
       one individual with a door that locks from the inside provides a right
       of privacy to an individual was crucial to the defense and was
       overruled . . . and a privacy instruction was not given to the jury.
              8. The evidence was insufficient for as jury to find that the
       defendant masturbated in public.

The motion does not state that the verdict was contrary to the weight of the

evidence, and it does not cite Iowa Rule of Criminal Procedure 2.24(2)(b)(7)

[formerly numbered 2.24(2)(b)(6)] or State v. Ellis, 578 N.W.2d 655, 658–59 (Iowa

1998). At the hearing on the motion, Denniston’s counsel argued that there was

insufficient evidence showing Denniston was in a public place and masturbating.

And in denying the motion, the trial court found “there was sufficient evidence that

the defendant did masturbate in public.”

       Sufficiency-of-the-evidence and weight-of-the-evidence challenges are not

synonymous. See State v. Ary, 877 N.W.2d 686, 706–07 (Iowa 2016). Raising

only a sufficiency-of-the-evidence claim does not preserve error on a weight-of-

the-evidence claim.     See State v. Thompson, 836 N.W.2d 470, 491 (Iowa

2013) (“On    appeal,    Thompson       relies   on   Iowa      Rule   of   Criminal

Procedure 2.24(2)(b)(6) and State v. Ellis, 578 N.W.2d 655, 659 (Iowa 1998).

However, Thompson’s counsel never cited that rule or Ellis in his posttrial motion
                                         7

or during the hearing on that motion in district court.”). As Denniston did not raise

a weight-of-the-evidence challenge or receive a ruling on such a challenge,

Denniston has not preserved any such challenge for our review. State v. Crawford,

972 N.W.2d 189, 198 (Iowa 2022) (“[A] party has an obligation to raise an issue in

the district court and obtain a decision on the issue so that an appellate court can

review the merits of the decision actually rendered.”); 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.”). Because Denniston failed to preserve error, we do

not address his weight-of-the-evidence claims on appeal.

       AFFIRMED.