IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 19-0442
Filed August 19, 2020
STATE OF IOWA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
vs.
DANIEL ANTHONY HARDEN,
Defendant-Appellant.
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Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Woodbury County, Todd A. Hensley,
District Associate Judge.
Daniel Harden appeals following his guilty pleas to aggravated assault and
possession of a controlled substance (marijuana) second offense. CONVICTIONS
AFFIRMED, SENTENCES VACATED AND REMANDED FOR RESENTENCING.
Rees Conrad Douglas, Sioux City, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Genevieve Reinkoester, Assistant
Attorney General, for appellee.
Considered by Vaitheswaran, P.J., and Mullins and Ahlers, JJ.
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VAITHESWARAN, Presiding Judge.
Daniel Harden entered written guilty pleas to aggravated assault and
possession of a controlled substance (marijuana) second offense, both aggravated
misdemeanors.1 Harden waived his right to a sentencing hearing, and the district
court immediately imposed a jail sentence of thirty days on the assault conviction
and 180 days on the possession conviction, with 165 days suspended, to be
served concurrently with the assault sentence. The dispositional order stated:
“The sentence imposed in this case is based on the facts shown to the court, the
plea agreement, presentence investigation or NCIC criminal history report and/or
for reasons of deterrence.”
On appeal, Harden argues “the sentencing order followed a template, a
boilerplate form,” which “tells us nothing about how the district court arrived at a
particular sentence in a particular case.” The State responds that “the district court
articulated its reasons for the sentence on the record, and these reasons were
both sufficient to support the sentence imposed and to allow for appellate review
of the decision.” We find Harden’s argument more persuasive.2
“Iowa Rule of Criminal Procedure 2.23(3)(d) requires the district court to
‘state on the record its reason for selecting the particular sentence.’” State v. Hill,
1 A second assault charge was dismissed.
2 Harden entered his plea and was sentenced before the effective date of an
amendment to Iowa Code section 814.6, which—with limited exceptions—
eliminated the right of appeal from “[a] conviction where the defendant has pled
guilty.” See 2019 Iowa Acts ch. 140, §28 (codified at Iowa Code § 814.6(1)(a)(3)
(2020)). In any event, the Iowa Supreme Court recently held “that good cause
exists to appeal from a conviction following a guilty plea when the defendant
challenges his or her sentence rather than the guilty plea.” State v. Damme, 944
N.W.2d 98, 105 (Iowa 2020).
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878 N.W.2d 269, 273 (Iowa 2016). “We have rejected a boilerplate-language
approach that does not show why a particular sentence was imposed in a particular
case.” State v. Thacker, 862 N.W.2d 402, 408 (Iowa 2015).
In evaluating the adequacy of the district court’s statement of reasons for
the sentences, we begin with the court’s reference to a “plea agreement.” The
standardized plea forms delineated the rights Harden would be waiving, listed the
statutory penalties for various crimes, and included short handwritten statements
describing the factual bases for the pleas. The forms contained an
acknowledgment of Harden’s understanding that “the judge may not follow the
recommendation in the plea agreement and that [his] sentence may be either less
or more severe than the plea agreement recommendation.” However, none of the
written plea forms outlined the “plea agreement recommendation[s].” The State
concedes as much, stating “no written plea agreement appears in the record.” The
State’s concession and the absence of any indication that Harden’s sentences
memorialized a plea recommendation renders the reference to a “plea agreement”
meaningless. See id. at 410 (“[W]e do not know from the record whether the
particulars of the district court’s sentence were agreed to by the parties. Although
we know there is a plea agreement of some kind, the Petition to Plead Guilty to
Serious Misdemeanor is silent on the terms of the plea agreement. . . . Further,
even if there was an agreed upon recommendation for sentencing, we do not know
from the record whether the district court followed it in every particular or deviated
from it in some respects.”).
The same holds true for the reference to a “presentence investigation.”
Although the plea forms stated the court could “take such additional time as the
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court requires” if the court wished “further presentence investigation,” the court did
not do so, and no presentence investigation report appears in the record. As for
the reference to “NCIC criminal history report,” that too does not appear in the
record.
We are left with “and/or reasons of deterrence.” The “and/or” reference is
the equivalent of an unchecked box on a form order. We cannot discern whether
deterrence was or was not a factor in the sentencing decision. See State v.
Schrader, No. 16-1816, 2017 WL 2465810, at *2 (Iowa Ct. App. June 7, 2017)
(citing “unchecked boxes in the plea agreement” and stating “[t]his court is not able
to adequately review why that recommendation was not followed or the reasons
for the sentence because we have no presentence investigation report, no
reported sentencing hearing, and only boilerplate sentencing language”).
In sum, “[l]ooking on the record, we do not know whether the district court
exercised its discretion, simply accepted the parties agreement, or did a little of
both.” Thacker, 862 N.W.2d at 410. We conclude the district court’s statement of
reasons for the sentences imposed reflects an abuse of discretion. We affirm
Harden’s convictions but vacate his sentences and remand for resentencing.
CONVICTIONS AFFIRMED, SENTENCES VACATED AND REMANDED
FOR RESENTENCING.