IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 17-2036
Filed November 7, 2018
STATE OF IOWA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
vs.
KEYSEAN DAMOUR CHUMLEY,
Defendant-Appellant.
________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, David N. May, Judge.
The defendant appeals after pleading guilty to eluding. AFFIRMED.
Thomas A. Hurd of Glazebrook, Glazebrook & Hurd, LLP, Des Moines, for
appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Zachary C. Miller, Assistant
Attorney General, for appellee.
Considered by Danilson, C.J., and Vogel and Tabor, JJ.
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TABOR, Judge.
Keysean Chumley appeals his conviction for eluding. He argues trial
counsel was ineffective for allowing him to plead guilty absent a factual basis for
an element of eluding, namely, a visual signal given by a police officer. Because
the district court had a sufficient factual basis to accept Chumley’s plea, we affirm.
I. Facts and Prior Proceedings.
In March 2017, Chumley was driving a black Fiat 500 on the north side of
Des Moines. Working patrol, Officer Jordan Wall saw the Fiat cross two lanes of
traffic while making a left-hand turn. The Fiat’s maneuver caused a pickup truck
to swerve onto the sidewalk to avoid a collision. Officer Wall turned on his
“emergency lights and sirens to initiate a traffic stop” of the Fiat. Instead of pulling
over, Chumley sped up. Police arrested Chumley after a chase.
As part of a bargain consolidating other charges, Chumley pleaded guilty to
felony eluding. Felony eluding requires proof of the following elements:
[T]he driver willfully fails to bring the motor vehicle to a stop or
otherwise eludes or attempts to elude a marked official law
enforcement vehicle that is driven by a uniformed peace officer
after being given a visual and audible signal[1] and in doing so
exceeds the speed limit by twenty-five miles per hour or more,
and . . . the driver is in violation of section . . . 124.401[2]. . . .
Iowa Code § 321.279(3)(b) (2017).
On appeal, Chumley claims his counsel was ineffective in permitting him to
plead guilty without a factual basis because the color of the lights used in the
officer’s visual signal is absent from the record.
1
Subsection 321.279(1) defines the necessary visual and audible signal as “flashing red
light, or . . . flashing red and blue lights, and siren.”
2
Section 124.401 prohibits possession of controlled substances.
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II. Scope and Standard of Review.
We review guilty pleas allegedly resulting from counsel’s ineffective
assistance de novo.3 State v. Utter, 803 N.W.2d 647, 651 (Iowa 2011). To prevail
in his claim of ineffective assistance, Chumley must establish “counsel failed to
perform an essential duty and prejudice resulted from such failure.” See id. at 652
(citing Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687 (1984)). “If an attorney allows
a defendant to plead guilty to an offense for which there is no factual basis and to
waive the right to file a motion in arrest of judgment, the attorney breaches an
essential duty.” State v. Philo, 697 N.W.2d 481, 485 (Iowa 2005). We presume
prejudice when the record reveals no factual basis for a guilty plea. See State v.
Schminkey, 597 N.W.2d 785, 788 (Iowa 1999).
III. Analysis.
Chumley argues trial counsel was ineffective in allowing him to enter a guilty
plea because the record does not contain facts supporting each element of felony
eluding. He zeroes in on the section 321.279(1) requirement the visual signal
given by the peace officer “shall be by flashing red light, or by flashing red and blue
lights.” During the plea colloquy, Chumley admitted driving the Fiat while
possessing marijuana and acknowledged a marked law enforcement vehicle
driven by a uniformed police officer gave him an audible and visual signal to stop.
Missing from the colloquy, by Chumley’s estimation, were sufficient details about
the visual signal to stop.
3
We generally preserve ineffective-assistance claims for postconviction-relief
proceedings. State v. Virgil, 895 N.W.2d 873, 879 (Iowa 2017). But when the record is
adequate, we can resolve claims on direct appeal. Id. Here, the record is adequate for
review.
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The court must determine a sufficient factual basis exists before accepting
a guilty plea. Iowa R. Crim. P. 2.8(2)(b). The evidentiary threshold for accepting
a guilty plea differs from the proof beyond a reasonable doubt necessary to support
a conviction. State v. Ortiz, 789 N.W.2d 761, 767–68 (Iowa 2010). When
discussing the factual basis requirement for pleas, our supreme court noted
“insubstantial errors should not entitle a defendant to relief.” State v. Finney, 834
N.W.2d 46, 62 (Iowa 2013). And the district court need only “be satisfied that the
facts support the crime” and be provided a description sufficient to allow it to
determine whether a factual basis for a plea exists. State v. Keene, 630 N.W.2d
579, 581–82 (Iowa 2001) (holding factual basis existed for guilty plea to
dissemination of obscene material to minors even though district court did not
personally view obscene material).
To determine whether a factual basis existed, we may examine the entire
record available to the district court. Finney, 834 N.W.2d at 62. We must decide
if Chumley’s admission to receiving a visual signal to stop—coupled with the
reference in the officer’s expected testimony to “emergency lights” without
specifying they were “flashing red” or “flashing red and blue”—provided an
adequate factual basis for the eluding charge.
Chumley relies on our recent decision in State v. Hankins, where we
vacated and remanded the eluding plea because the record did not reveal whether
the police officer was in uniform as required by section 321.279. 17-1436, 2018
WL 2084825, *2 (Iowa Ct. App. May 2, 2018) (quoting Iowa Code § 321.279(2)).
By contrast, the record in the present case is not entirely lacking facts about the
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visual signal. See id. The minutes of evidence disclose “Officer Wall was traveling
in Des Moines Police Department issued patrol vehicle, turn[ed] on his emergency
lights and sirens to initiate a traffic stop of the black Fiat.” The record here
establishes the officer’s emergency lights were on, but not whether the emergency
lights were the color described in the statute. Accordingly, Hankins is not
analogous. See id.
The district court could infer the visual signal included “flashing red light” or
“flashing red and blue lights” from the officer’s expected testimony he activated his
“emergency lights.” See Keene, 630 N.W.2d at 581–82. Case law and statutes
reflect the accepted understanding of emergency lights as red or red and blue.
See, e.g., State v. Prusha, 874 N.W.2d 627, 628 (Iowa 2016) (“[The peace officer]
activated the vehicle’s rear amber directional lights but not its red and blue
emergency lights.”); State v. White, 887 N.W.2d 172, 174, 176 (Iowa 2016) (per
curiam) (finding officer seized defendant, in part, by using his emergency lights
and later describing those lights as “flashing red and blue”); State v. Berry, No. 12–
0964, 2013 WL 1453036, at *1 (Iowa Ct. App. Apr. 10, 2013) (rejecting factual
basis challenge to eluding plea when minutes stated deputy “activated his
emergency lights”); see also Iowa Code § 321.324 (describing emergency vehicles
as having red and blue lights). These references in case law and code provide a
solid foundation in support of the inference necessary to establish a factual basis.
Under the principles articulated above, Chumley’s recognition of the police
car’s lights as a signal to stop, together with the officer’s description of activating
his “emergency lights” when pursing Chumley, satisfied the factual basis for the
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“visual signal” element of eluding. See Finney, 834 N.W.2d at 62. We affirm
Chumley’s eluding conviction.
AFFIRMED.