State of Iowa v. Antonio Lavell Lewis

• Court: Court of Appeals of Iowa
• Decided: January 9, 2025
• Docket: 23-1144
• Status: Published

Opinion

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 23-1144 Filed January 9, 2025

STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff-Appellee,

vs.

ANTONIO LAVELL LEWIS, Defendant-Appellant. ________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Warren County, Martha L. Mertz,

Judge.

The defendant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support his

conviction for first-degree murder. AFFIRMED.

Martha J. Lucey, State Appellate Defender, and Melinda J. Nye, Assistant

Appellate Defender, for appellant.

Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Sheryl Soich, Assistant Attorney

General, for appellee.

Considered by Ahlers, P.J., Chicchelly, J., and Potterfield, S.J.*

*Senior judge assigned by order pursuant to Iowa Code section 602.9206

(2025). 2

POTTERFIELD, Senior Judge.

Antonio Lewis appeals his conviction for first-degree murder, arguing there

is insufficient evidence to support the jury’s determination he was the person who

killed his girlfriend, Karisa Shendelman.

We review “challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence for the correction

of legal error.” State v. Banes, 910 N.W.2d 634, 637 (Iowa Ct. App. 2018). We

affirm when the verdict is supported by substantial evidence. Id. “Evidence is

substantial when the quantum and quality of evidence is sufficient to ‘convince a

rational fact finder that the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.’” Id.

(citation omitted). In conducting our review, we do not resolve conflicts in the

evidence, decide the credibility of witnesses, or weigh the evidence—those

decisions are for the factfinder. See State v. Musser, 721 N.W.2d 758, 761 (Iowa

2006). Instead, we consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict,

“including all reasonable inferences that may be fairly drawn from the evidence.”

Banes, 910 N.W.2d at 637.

For Lewis to be properly convicted of first-degree murder, the State had to

prove that Lewis stabbed Karisa; she died as a result of the stabbing; Lewis acted

with malice aforethought; and he acted willfully, deliberately, premeditatedly, and

with a specific intent to kill her. Lewis challenges only the first element—arguing

there is insufficient evidence he was the person who inflicted twenty-one sharp

force injuries on Karisa, including a wound that cut her jugular vein.

Lewis’s theory of the crime, as presented to the jury through an audio

recording of an interview conducted by an agent with the Iowa Division of Criminal

Investigation, was that an unidentified man came into the apartment and killed 3

Karisa. According to Lewis’s statements during that interview, he went to sleep at

6:30 or 7:00 p.m. on September 14 after smoking a joint and drinking alcohol. He

awoke when he heard a scream; after exiting the bedroom, he saw a person who

was approximately 6 feet tall holding Karisa from behind. Lewis grabbed the

assailant by the hood of their clothing, and the person—who Lewis assumed was

a man based on his height and apparent strength—swung around and then sliced

down, causing one injury near Lewis’s wrist. At that point, the assailant fled,

leaving the apartment and presumably the building. Lewis repeatedly told the

agent he did not follow the assailant; he locked the door behind the fleeing person

and then tried to get Karisa to stand. When she did not stay up with his help, Lewis

ultimately moved her to the couch. After that, he called his brother in a panic,

asking him to come to the apartment. He estimated he talked to his brother less

than three minutes “and then [Lewis] got off the phone with him and [he] called the

police immediately.”

But this version of events does not fit well with other evidence the State

introduced at trial. Lewis called 911 at 12:29 a.m. on September 15. According to

his statement to the agent, he called within about five minutes of the assailant

fleeing and, before waking up to the scream, he was asleep in another room. But

data from Lewis’s phone showed he called his brother six times between

11:09 p.m. and 11:57 p.m. on September 14.1 And, while Lewis’s version would

have emergency medical personnel arriving within just minutes of the stabbing, the

1 According to the report of the phone data, Lewis called his brother six times; his

brother answered four of those times, and those four calls lasted for a combined total of more than forty-four minutes. 4

medical responders testified that Karisa’s body temperature was already cold to

the touch when they arrived—one responder used an infrared temporal scanner to

determine the body’s temperature and got a reading of “low,” which they testified

means below 90 degrees. The deputy state medical examiner who completed the

autopsy testified that the general rate of cooling “is 1 to 2 degrees Fahrenheit per

hour at room temperature, which is around 72 degrees Fahrenheit.” Another

medical responder noted rigor mortis in Karisa’s arm, which one responder testified

is not an immediate process. Data from Karissa’s phone showed the last activity

was at 11:00 p.m., when her maps application was open. And Karisa’s downstairs

neighbor testified he heard “a big thump” around 11:00 p.m. that night.

Other evidence also contradicted Lewis’s version as he explained it in the

recorded interview. When Lewis called 911, he reported that there were two

assailants. But during the recorded interview, Lewis described just one person.

And, while Lewis repeatedly told the agent that he did not leave the apartment

building after waking up to the assailant in the apartment, responding police

officers noted blood on the stoop outside of the apartment building as they first

entered—before Lewis was removed from the apartment by officers. DNA analysis

was later run on the blood from the stoop, and it matched Lewis’s DNA profile.

Plus, according to Lewis’s pod mate in county jail,2 Lewis told him, “I killed a white

2 The pod mate—who had cooperated with prosecutors in at least one other case—

was specifically approached by the prosecution for assistance with this case. For his cooperation, the prosecutors agreed to speak to another county attorney about sentencing in another case of the pod mate and to house the pod mate in the Warren County jail. 5

bitch. I stabbed a white bitch.” Lewis also told the pod mate that he called 911

himself after he did it because he thought it would help his case.

On appeal, Lewis attempts to minimize all the evidence that suggests Karisa

died well before his call to 911 at 12:29 a.m. And he suggests his confusion about

the number of assailants, whether he ever left the apartment after the stabbing,

and his belief he was asleep (rather than repeatedly speaking to his brother) in the

ninety minutes before he called 911 can be explained by the fact that he was drunk

and high—not that they are falsehoods. In other words, Lewis argues alternative

explanations for the evidence that incriminates him. But the jury had all that

information; it was free to accept or reject Lewis’s version of the events. See

Blume v. Ary, 576 N.W.2d 122, 125 (Iowa Ct. App. 1997). And, when reviewing

for sufficient evidence, we broadly and liberally construe the findings of the

factfinder in support of the verdict. State v. Price, 365 N.W.2d 632, 633 (Iowa Ct.

App. 1985).

Here, the State presented evidence that officers responding to the 911 call

found Lewis alone and covered in blood in the apartment with his dead girlfriend.

Lewis’s statements to officers explaining what happened were inconsistent—with

each other and with the evidence that was collected. Later, when he was in

custody, Lewis admitted that he “stabbed a white bitch.” Substantial evidence

supports the jury’s determination that Lewis killed Karisa; we affirm his conviction

for first-degree murder.

AFFIRMED.