IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 14-1974
Filed February 10, 2016
STATE OF IOWA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
vs.
GABRIEL E. HUDSON,
Defendant-Appellant.
________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Woodbury County, Steven J.
Andreasen, Judge.
Gabriel Hudson appeals the district court’s denial of his motion to correct
an illegal sentence. AFFIRMED.
Mark C. Smith, State Appellate Defender, and Melinda J. Nye, Assistant
Appellate Defender, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Kevin Cmelik, Assistant Attorney
General, for appellee.
Considered by Vogel, P.J., and Vaitheswaran and Bower, JJ.
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VAITHESWARAN, Judge.
Gabriel Hudson appeals the district court’s denial of his motion to correct
an illegal sentence. He contends (1) the rationale of recent juvenile sentencing
opinions should apply to his seventy-five year sentence imposed when he was a
juvenile despite the absence of a mandatory minimum term and (2) he was
entitled to an evidentiary hearing on his claim of excessive or gross
disproportionality.
I. Background Facts and Proceedings
Hudson pled guilty to second-degree kidnapping, attempted murder, willful
injury, assault while participating in a felony causing serious injury, and going
armed with intent, in connection with crimes committed when he was fifteen
years old. The district court sentenced him to a total prison term not exceeding
seventy-five years.
Twenty-one years after his sentence was imposed Hudson filed a “motion
to correct illegal sentencing.” He sought a reopening of his sentence to permit
the application of State v. Null, 836 N.W.2d 41 (Iowa 2013). There, the Iowa
Supreme Court concluded “a 52.5-year minimum prison term for a juvenile based
on the aggregation of mandatory minimum sentences for second-degree murder
and first-degree robbery triggers . . . an individualized sentencing hearing to
determine the issue of parole eligibility.” Null, 836 N.W.2d at 71. See also State
v. Lyle, 854 N.W.2d 378, 404 (Iowa 2014) (“[A]rticle I, section 17 of the Iowa
Constitution forbids a mandatory minimum sentencing schema for juvenile
offenders that deprives the district court of the discretion to consider youth and its
3
attendant circumstances as a mitigating factor and to impose a lighter
punishment by eliminating the minimum period of incarceration without parole.”).
The district court denied Hudson’s motion. The court reasoned that the
sentencing court “imposed no mandatory minimum period of incarceration.” This
meant Hudson was “eligible for release on parole since the first day of his
sentence.” The court concluded:
[O]nly mandatory minimum sentences trigger or implicate the additional
considerations that must be given for crimes committed by juveniles . . . .
A sentence that imposes no mandatory minimum term, regardless
of whether the sentencing court considered the particular characteristics of
[Hudson’s] youth, is not categorically unconstitutional as cruel and unusual
punishment under the United States or Iowa Constitutions.
The district court also found and concluded that Hudson’s sentence did
“not constitute cruel and unusual punishment under the traditional ‘excessive’ or
‘grossly disproportionate’ analysis.” The court reasoned that Hudson “committed
and pled guilty to five separate criminal acts” involving “violent crimes against his
victim,” the sentence “was within the statutory times established by the
legislature,” and Hudson might “completely discharge his sentence in less than
[thirty] years based upon earned time, work credits, and other program credits” or
might “be eligible for release on parole at an earlier date.” This appeal followed.
II. Juvenile Resentencing
Our appellate courts have declined to extend the individualized sentencing
requirement for juveniles to sentences without mandatory minimum terms. See
Lyle, 854 N.W.2d at 404 n.10 (“[W]e reiterate that the specific constitutional
challenge raised on appeal and addressed in this opinion concerns the statutory
imposition of a minimum period of incarceration without parole equal to seventy
4
percent of the mandatory sentence. The holding in this case does not address
the mandatory sentence of incarceration imposed under the statutory sentencing
schema or any other issues relating to the sentencing schema.” (Emphasis
added)); State v. Propps, No. 15-0235, 2015 WL 9451072, at *2 (Iowa Ct. App.
Dec. 23, 2015) (“[A]t the end of the day, the [Lyle] court limited its holding to
prison sentences with mandatory minimum terms.”); State v. Means, No. 14-
1376, 2015 WL 6509741, at *9 (Iowa Ct. App. Oct. 28, 2015) (“It is appropriate
for our court to defer to the supreme court on whether to extend the holding[]
of . . . Lyle to cases where juvenile offenders do not face any mandatory
minimum sentences.”); State v. Marshall-Limoges, No. 14-1610, 2015 WL
4936265, at *1 (Iowa Ct. App. Aug. 19, 2015) (“Lyle is inapplicable; none of the
sentences here involve mandatory minimum terms of incarceration.”). Hudson
concedes his prison term did not include “a mandatory minimum term of
incarceration.”1 Accordingly, the district court correctly concluded an
individualized sentencing hearing was unnecessary under existing Iowa Supreme
Court precedent.
III. Evidentiary Hearing
Hudson asserts the district court was obligated to “hold a hearing
permitting [him] to put on evidence or testimony supporting his claim [that the
sentence was grossly disproportionate] and the court’s analysis failed to take into
account any specific facts or circumstances of [his] crime or any characteristics
1
Hudson was sentenced prior to the legislature’s enactment of mandatory minimums for
conviction of “certain felonies.” See, e.g., Iowa Code § 902.12(2) (attempted murder),
(4) (kidnapping in the second degree) (2015).
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of . . . himself.” The State counters that Hudson failed to preserve this challenge
for review.
Although Hudson did not raise this challenge, the district court elected to
decide it. Because the record contains a ruling on the issue, we bypass the
State’s error preservation concern and proceed to the merits. See State v.
Taylor, 596 N.W.2d 55, 56 (Iowa 1999).
The threshold question is whether the sentence “leads to an inference of
gross disproportionality.” State v. Oliver, 812 N.W.2d 636, 647 (Iowa 2012).2
“This preliminary test involves a balancing of the gravity of the crime against the
severity of the sentence.” Id. “If the sentence does not create an inference of
gross disproportionality, then ‘no further analysis is necessary.’” Id. at 650
(quoting State v. Seering, 701 N.W.2d 655, 670 (Iowa 2005)).
The district court balanced the gravity of the crimes against the severity of
Hudson’s sentence, as Oliver instructs, and found no inference of gross
disproportionality. Having resolved the threshold question, the court did not go
any further.
We concur in the court’s analysis of this issue. Unlike State v. Bruegger,
773 N.W.2d 862, 884 (Iowa 2009), cited by Hudson, this case did not involve
“acts of lesser culpability within the scope of broad criminal statutes.” While the
sentences carried “stiff penalties,” a factor deemed important in Bruegger,
Hudson’s immediate eligibility for parole mitigated the harshness of the sentence.
2
The United States Supreme Court expressed some reservation about applying rules
announced in cases involving adult offenders to the sentencing of juvenile offenders.
See Miller v. Alabama, 132 S.Ct. 2455, 2470 (2012).
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Because this is not a Bruegger case, we conclude the district court appropriately
declined to schedule an evidentiary hearing.
We affirm the district court’s denial of Hudson’s motion to correct an illegal
sentence.
AFFIRMED.