IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 16-2146
Filed August 16, 2017
STATE OF IOWA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
vs.
JEFFRY ROBERT JENSEN,
Defendant-Appellant.
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Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Pottawattamie County, Timothy
O’Grady (plea) and Gregory W. Steensland (sentencing and resentencing),
Judges.
A defendant appeals the district court’s decision at resentencing,
challenging the district court’s rejection of plea agreements and imposition of
consecutive sentences. AFFIRMED.
Marti D. Nerenstone, Council Bluffs, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Kelli A. Huser, Assistant Attorney
General, for appellee.
Considered by Danilson, C.J., and Tabor and McDonald, JJ.
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TABOR, Judge.
For the second time, Jeffry Jensen appeals his nine-year indeterminate
prison sentence. After our supreme court decided State v. Hill, 878 N.W.2d 269,
275 (Iowa 2016), requiring district courts to give specific reasons for imposing
consecutive terms, we remanded his case for resentencing. After giving
reasons, the district court imposed the same sentence. Jensen again appeals,
claiming (1) counsel at the original sentencing was ineffective for not objecting to
the court’s rejection of his plea agreements, (2) the court erred in declining to
follow the plea agreements at either the original sentencing or resentencing, and
(3) the court failed to properly state its reasons for imposing consecutive
sentences.
We decline to address Jensen’s claims to the extent they relate to the
original sentencing hearing. Jensen raised these challenges in his previous
appeal, and we rejected them. See State v. Jensen, No. 15-2172, 2016 WL
5931033, at *3 (Iowa Ct. App. Oct. 12, 2016). Under the law-of-the-case
doctrine, “the legal principles announced and the views expressed by a reviewing
court in an opinion, right or wrong, are binding throughout further progress of the
case upon the litigants, the trial court and this court in later appeals.” State v.
Ragland, 812 N.W.2d 654, 658 (Iowa 2012). We decline to reconsider these
claims of error.
We also reject Jensen’s claim the district court erred in not following the
plea agreements at resentencing. As we stated in in his first appeal:
This argument is without merit. The written agreements in these
cases stated Jensen’s guilty pleas were “not contingent” on the
court’s acceptance of the State’s sentencing concessions. See
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Iowa R. Crim. P. 2.10(2) (permitting but not requiring parties to
condition plea agreement on court’s concurrence to the charging or
sentencing concessions). At the plea hearing, both defense
counsel and the district court noted “that sentencing is open”—
indicating the court was not bound by either party’s
recommendations.
Jensen, 2016 WL 5931033, at *3. Accordingly, the district court was not bound
by the plea agreements at resentencing as Jensen asserts. Moreover, as the
State points out, the district court lacked the authority to revisit the provisions of
the plea agreements at resentencing because Jensen’s case was remanded for
the limited purpose of determining “whether the sentences should run
consecutive or concurrent and provid[ing] reasons for [that] decision.” Id. at *4;
see also State v. Pearson, 876 N.W.2d 200, 204 (Iowa 2016) (noting that on
remand, a district court “is limited to do the special thing authorized by this court
in its opinion, and nothing else” (citation omitted)).
Finally, contrary to Jensen’s claim, the resentencing court provided
adequate reasons for imposing consecutive terms. We review sentencing
decisions for correction of errors at law. See State v. Formaro, 638 N.W.2d 720,
724 (Iowa 2002). Sentences that conform to the statutory limits are “cloaked with
a strong presumption in [their] favor, and will only be overturned for an abuse of
discretion or the consideration of inappropriate matters.” Id. A district court must
state with specificity its rationale for imposing consecutive sentences, but “in
doing so the court may rely on the same reasons for imposing a sentence of
incarceration.” Hill, 878 N.W.2d at 275.
At resentencing, the district court stated:
I would also inform you that these sentences are being run
consecutively because of your need for and the likelihood to
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achieve rehabilitation, because of society’s protection from further
offenses by you and others, because of my personal review of the
facts and circumstances in this case, and because of the continuing
nature of your criminal activity and the chronology of events as they
occurred in each of the incidents for which you entered a plea of
guilty.
Because the court targeted its rationale to the imposition of consecutive
sentences, Jensen’s challenge fails. See id.; see also State v. Barnes, 791
N.W.2d 817, 828 (Iowa 2010) (noting reasons “need not be detailed, [but] at least
a cursory explanation must be provided” (citation omitted)). We affirm Jensen’s
convictions and sentences.
AFFIRMED.