IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 14-1946
Filed August 17, 2016
STATE OF IOWA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
vs.
REY GAYTON JR.,
Defendant-Appellant.
________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Scott County, Christine Dalton,
District Associate Judge.
Rey Gayton Jr. appeals the district court’s denial of his motion to dismiss.
AFFIRMED.
Joel A. Walker, Law Office of Joel Walker, P.C., Davenport, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Tyler J. Buller, Assistant Attorney
General, for appellee.
Considered by Danilson, C.J., and Vaitheswaran and Tabor, JJ.
2
VAITHESWARAN, Judge.
The State charged Rey Gayton Jr. with credit card fraud and third-degree
theft. After a series of postponements, Gayton moved to dismiss the charges,
claiming a violation of his right to a speedy trial. See Iowa R. Crim. P. 2.33(2)(c).
The district court denied the motion. Gayton subsequently pled guilty to credit
card fraud and waived his right to file a motion in arrest of judgment. The district
court imposed sentence and this appeal followed.
Gayton contends the district court abused its discretion in denying the
motion to dismiss. See State v. Winters, 690 N.W.2d 903, 907 (Iowa 2005)
(setting forth standard for review of a district court’s ruling on a motion to dismiss
based on speedy-trial grounds). The State counters that Gayton “waived any
claim regarding speedy trial by pleading guilty.” We agree with the State.
“[A] defendant’s guilty plea waives all defenses and objections which are
not intrinsic to the plea.” State v. Carroll, 767 N.W.2d 638, 641 (Iowa 2009).
This includes defenses based on delays in bringing a case to trial. See State v.
Taylor, 211 N.W.2d 264, 266 (Iowa 1973) (“As to the time lapse between the
information and the plea, defendant is foreclosed from complaint by his guilty
plea, under our recent holding in [McGee].”); State v. McGee, 211 N.W.2d 267,
268 (Iowa 1973) (“We hold that defendant waived delay in trial by pleading
guilty.”). When Gayton pled guilty, he waived his right to challenge the district
court’s ruling on his motion to dismiss.1
1
As the State notes, Gayton’s “appellate brief does not assert that the plea was
involuntary, unknowing, or otherwise invalid” or contain “any allegation of ineffective
assistance.”
3
The Iowa Supreme Court’s recent opinion in State v. Taylor, ___ N.W.2d
___, 2016 WL 3354424 (Iowa 2016), does not alter our conclusion. There, the
court reached the merits of a claimed speedy trial violation. But, unlike this case,
the court faced no procedural bars. The defendant did not plead guilty; she
submitted to a trial on the minutes and was found guilty of the charged crimes.
Under that posture, the supreme court could decide the merits of the district
court’s ruling on her motion to dismiss. See State v. Lewis, 05-2079, 2007 WL
1202382, at *4 (Iowa Ct. App. Apr. 25, 2007) (“Upon our review of the relevant
proceeding, we conclude [the defendant] was convicted pursuant to a trial on the
minutes, not an Alford plea; therefore he did not waive his right to appeal the
denial of his motion to dismiss [for speedy-trial violations].”).
Gayton, in contrast, faced a significant procedural hurdle to consideration
of the merits of the dismissal ruling: his guilty plea. After obtaining a ruling on his
speedy trial defense, he pled guilty and waived his right to challenge the plea via
a motion in arrest of judgment. Under this procedural posture, he ran head-on
into the holdings of McGee and Taylor. See McGee, 211 N.W.2d at 268; Taylor,
211 N.W.2d at 266. In light of this precedent, we do not reach the merits of the
district court’s ruling on Gayton’s motion to dismiss.
We affirm Gayton’s judgment and sentence for credit-card fraud.
AFFIRMED.