IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 17-1887
Filed December 19, 2018
STATE OF IOWA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
vs.
MISTY KAYE SPOONER,
Defendant-Appellant.
________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Black Hawk County, Brook K.
Jacobsen, District Associate Judge.
A defendant appeals her conviction for assault causing bodily injury.
AFFIRMED.
Shawn C. McCullough of Powell & McCullough, PLC, Coralville, for
appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Thomas E. Bakke, Assistant
Attorney General, for appellee.
Considered by Danilson, C.J., and Vogel and Tabor, JJ.
2
TABOR, Judge.
A jury found Misty Spooner guilty of assault causing bodily injury after she
punched another woman, B.T., in the mouth, knocking out a tooth. On appeal,
Spooner contends her trial counsel was ineffective in his cross-examination of B.T.
Because the record is inadequate to decide this issue, we affirm Spooner’s
conviction but preserve her ineffective-assistance claim for possible
postconviction-relief proceedings.
A few facts frame the issue. B.T. celebrated a friend’s birthday in August
2016 by tubing with friends on the Cedar River. The twenty somethings drank
cans of light beer and sipped Fireball, a cinnamon whiskey. That evening they
returned to the house of the birthday celebrant where more acqaintances—
including Spooner—joined the party. But the party degenerated into a series of
drunken brawls. To break up the fights, one of the residents grabbed “bear mace”
and “just started spraying it everywhere.” The mace hit B.T. in the face, burning
her eyes. B.T. recalled, “Everything I could see just slowly faded.” B.T. believed
she “blacked out” and was kicked or hit on the ground.
When B.T. “came back to consciousness” she realized Spooner was sitting
on top of her, punching her in the face. Spooner’s blows knocked out B.T.’s tooth.
On cross-examination, B.T. admitted she was initially reluctant to ask the
sheriff to charge Spooner with a crime because B.T. wasn’t “one-hundred percent
sure” what happened right before she blacked out. B.T. acknowledged telling the
sheriff it was possible she struck Spooner first—which supported Spooner’s claim
of self defense. But the jury rejected Spooner’s defense and returned a guilty
verdict.
3
In this appeal, Spooner alleges her trial attorney was remiss in not
effectively impeaching B.T. during that cross-examination. She contends her
attorney breached a material duty by not asking “relevant follow-up questions”
about B.T.’s “proclivity to blacking out while fighting.” Because Spooner’s claim
invokes the Sixth Amendment, our review is de novo. See State v. Virgil, 895
N.W.2d 873, 879 (Iowa 2017). We ordinarily preserve ineffective-assistance
claims for postconviction proceedings so the parties may develop the record. See
State v. Thorndike, 860 N.W.2d 316, 319 (Iowa 2015). We will resolve the claims
on direct appeal only when the record is adequate. Id.
This case falls into the more common category where preservation is
necessary. See State v. Tate, 710 N.W.2d 237, 240 (Iowa 2006). A postconviction
hearing would provide Spooner’s trial counsel the chance to explain his strategy in
cross-examining B.T. and to “defend against the charge.” Id. The record is also
undeveloped “as to any prejudice which may or may not have resulted from trial
counsel’s actions.” See State v. Shanahan, 712 N.W.2d 121, 143 (Iowa 2006).
Because the trial record lacks the details needed to address Spooner’s claim, we
preserve it for possible postconviction proceedings. See id.
AFFIRMED.
State of Iowa v. Misty Kaye Spooner
Combined Opinion