State of Iowa v. Christopher John Jurgens

• Court: Court of Appeals of Iowa
• Decided: April 23, 2025
• Docket: 23-1820
• Status: Published

Opinion

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 23-1820 Filed April 23, 2025

STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff-Appellee,

vs.

CHRISTOPHER JOHN JURGENS, Defendant-Appellant. ________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Crawford County, Roger L. Sailer,

Judge.

Christopher Jurgens appeals his conviction for second-degree sexual

abuse. AFFIRMED.

Martha J. Lucey, State Appellate Defender, and Bradley M. Bender

(argued), Assistant Appellate Defender, for appellant.

Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Sheryl Soich (argued), Assistant

Attorney General, for appellee.

Heard at oral argument by Ahlers, P.J., Badding, Chicchelly, Buller, JJ., and

Telleen, S.J.*

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

(2025). 2

AHLERS, Presiding Judge.

A child confided in her classmate that her mother’s ex-boyfriend,

Christopher Jurgens, had been sexually abusing her for several years. That set

off a chain of events culminating in Jurgens’s conviction for one count of sexual

abuse in the second degree.

I. Background Facts

In 2013, Jurgens moved into the home of his girlfriend and her three

children. While he lived with them for the next five years, Jurgens took on a

parental role in the home, requiring the children to call him “dad,” assigning them

chores, and acting as the family disciplinarian.

The youngest child was just six years old when Jurgens moved into the

family home. She was excited to have someone serve as a father figure to her,

and the two “kind of clicked” when Jurgens moved in. When the child was eleven,

Jurgens and his girlfriend broke up, and Jurgens moved back to his parents’ house

in a neighboring town. That did not end Jurgens’s involvement in the child’s life

though. He continued to see her regularly, taking her out to his parents’ home for

visits and attending her activities. He even purchased her a cell phone and

computer for Christmas.

At school, the child heard rumors that her classmate had been sexually

abused. After track practice one day, the child told the classmate that she had also

been sexually abused. Then, after the child’s older sister brought up the

classmate’s abuse, the child confided in her sister that Jurgens had been sexually

abusing her. The two sisters workshopped ways for the child to avoid Jurgens. 3

About a week later, the classmate told the school principal that he should

talk to the child. The principal followed up and met with the child. The child told

the principal that Jurgens was sexually abusing her. The principal then contacted

the Iowa Department of Human Services.1

The child went to a child advocacy center where she underwent a forensic

interview and a forensic examination. Later, law enforcement officers interviewed

Jurgens at his parents’ home. Officers from two different counties were present,

one from the county where Jurgens and his parents lived (Crawford County) and

one from the county where the child lived with her mother (Monona County).

Eventually, the Crawford County Attorney charged Jurgens by trial information with

one count of second-degree sexual abuse and three counts of third-degree sexual

abuse. Following a multi-day trial, the jury convicted Jurgens of second-degree

sexual abuse but acquitted him on the three third-degree counts.

Jurgens appeals his conviction, challenging the sufficiency of the evidence

and raising several evidentiary challenges. We address each in turn.

II. Sufficiency of the Evidence

We review sufficiency-of-the-evidence challenges for legal error.2 State v.

Crawford, 974 N.W.2d 510, 516 (Iowa 2022). On appeal, the jury’s verdict is

1 In 2022, the Iowa Department of Human Services merged with the Iowa Department of Public Health to become the Iowa Department of Health and Human Services. 2 Jurgens contends the standard of review for challenges to the sufficiency of

evidence should be de novo because the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard is constitutionally based. We reject this contention because the supreme court has clearly proclaimed the standard of review to be for correction of errors at law, see State v. Slaughter, 3 N.W.3d 540, 546 (Iowa 2024), and we are not permitted to ignore or overrule controlling precedent. See State v. Beck, 854 N.W.2d 56, 64 (Iowa Ct. App. 2014). 4

binding if it is supported by substantial evidence. Slaughter, 3 N.W.3d at 546.

Evidence is substantial if it “would convince a rational fact finder the defendant is

guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” Crawford, 974 N.W.2d at 516 (citation omitted).

In assessing whether substantial evidence supports the verdict, we “view the

evidence in the light most favorable to the State, ‘including legitimate inferences

and presumptions that may fairly and reasonably be deduced from the record

evidence.’” State v. Ernst, 954 N.W.2d 50, 54 (Iowa 2021) (citation omitted). And

although Jurgens raises challenges to some of the evidence admitted at his trial,

we still consider the challenged evidence in assessing the sufficiency of the

evidence, regardless of whether we ultimately determine it to be admissible. See

State v. Dullard, 668 N.W.2d 585, 597 (Iowa 2003).

At the outset of Jurgens’s challenge, Jurgens asks that we require

corroboration of victim testimony in sexual-abuse cases. But more than fifty years

ago, our legislature amended the Iowa Code to remove such requirement. See

State v. Kraai, 969 N.W.2d 487, 491 (Iowa 2022). A few years later, it enacted

Iowa Code section 709.6 (1978), which specifically states, “No instruction shall be

given in a trial for sexual abuse cautioning the jury to use a different standard

relating to a victim’s testimony than that of any other witness to that offense or any

other offense.” 1976 Iowa Acts ch. 1245, § 906. Iowa Rule of Criminal

Procedure 2.21(3) explains, “Corroboration of the testimony of victims shall not be

required.” And our supreme court has confirmed that corroboration of victim

testimony in sexual-abuse cases is not necessary. See Kraai, 969 N.W.2d at 491.

We cannot, and will not, ignore or overrule our supreme court’s precedent to say

otherwise. Beck, 854 N.W.2d at 64. 5

With that, we turn to the marshaling instruction provided to the jury to

address Jurgens’s sufficiency challenge.3 The marshaling instruction required the

State to prove these elements: (1) “Between March 1, 2019, and March 27, 2019,

in Crawford County, Iowa, [Jurgens] performed a sex act with [the child]” and

(2) “[a]t that time, [the child] was under the age of 12 years.” Jurgens focuses his

challenge on the date range provided in the first element. He argues the date

range is a material element in this particular case because it differentiated the

second-degree sexual abuse count from the three third-degree sexual-abuse

counts and any abuse that occurred in a county other than Crawford County.4

Upon this premise, he argues the child never specifically testified that any abuse

occurred during the specified date range, so there is insufficient evidence on which

to convict him.

We need not determine whether the date range amounts to a material

element here. Cf. State v. Yeo, 659 N.W.2d 544, 550 (Iowa 2003) (recognizing

that the precise time and place of a crime is typically not a material element); State

v. Rankin, 181 N.W.2d 169, 171 (Iowa 1970) (“Under Iowa law the state does not

have to elect or prove a date certain in order to prove incest, statutory rape or

3 Jurgens did not object to the marshaling instruction, so it is the law of the case

for purposes of reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence. See State v. Schwartz, 7 N.W.3d 756, 764 (Iowa 2024). 4 It is not clear to us how the specificity of the date of the offense would address

Jurgens’s concerns about being convicted in multiple counties for the same conduct or on multiple counts within this proceeding for the same conduct. Regardless, we note that the marshaling instruction required the jury to assess conduct occurring in Crawford County, assuring that Jurgens would not be convicted for conduct occurring in another county. And the marshaling instruction for second-degree sexual abuse was differentiated from the third-degree counts by the age of the child at the time of the charged abuse. 6

adultery as the exact time of the act is not material.”). That is because even if the

date range were a material element in this case, the State provided sufficient

evidence that Jurgens abused the child during that time.

The child testified as to how the abuse began and progressed over time.

She was seven years old when Jurgens first abused her. He would instruct her to

manually stimulate his penis when they watched movies together but were

otherwise alone. When she was a little older, around eight or nine years old,

Jurgens started to show her pornography and talk about it. Jurgens talked to the

child about oral sex, which they observed in the pornography, and he put his penis

in her mouth. Jurgens would require the child to perform oral sex “weekly at the

minimum.” When the child was about nine years old, Jurgens told the child that

“he wanted to try to put his penis in [her] butt.” Jurgens would anally and orally

penetrate the child and require her to manually stimulate his penis “multiple times

a week.”

The child explained that before Jurgens moved out of her home,5 she would

go with Jurgens to his parents’ house weekly. And she clarified that Jurgens

abused her while at his parents’ house for several years.6 She explained that when

they were at Jurgens’s parents’ house, the abuse would often occur in shorter

intervals, lasting five to ten minutes, and Jurgens would most often put his penis

in her mouth.

5 Jurgens testified that he moved out of the child’s home in May 2019, a couple

months after the time in question. 6 A Crawford County Sheriff’s deputy testified that Jurgens’s parents’ home is in

Crawford County. 7

From the child’s testimony about the frequency with which Jurgens would

abuse her, that she went out to Jurgens’s parents’ house with him weekly, and that

he regularly abused her at that residence, a juror could reasonably conclude that

Jurgens sexually abused the child at least once while at his parents’ home in

Crawford County between March 1, 2019, and March 27, 2019, when the child was

under the age of twelve. Accordingly, Jurgens’s challenge to the sufficiency of the

evidence fails.

III. Evidentiary Challenges

We turn next to Jurgens’s evidentiary challenges. We typically review

“[d]istrict court decisions on whether to admit or exclude evidence . . . for an abuse

of discretion.” State v. Dessinger, 958 N.W.2d 590, 597 (Iowa 2021). A district

court abuses its discretion when its decision to admit or deny evidence is “clearly

untenable or clearly unreasonable.” State v. Donahue, 957 N.W.2d 1, 6 (Iowa

2021) (citation omitted). But when reviewing hearsay claims, our review is for legal

error. State v. Thompson, 982 N.W.2d 116, 121 (Iowa 2022). That “is because the

district court lacks ‘discretion to admit hearsay in the absence of a provision

providing for it’ or deny the admission of hearsay if it falls within an exception.” Id.

(citation omitted).

A. Testimony from Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner

The nurse who examined the child at the child advocacy center testified at

trial about her examination of the child. Her testimony included the following

regarding a missing portion of the child’s hymenal tissue7:

7 The child reported that when she was twelve years old Jurgens put his penis in her vagina. 8

Q. Is that the area of missing tissue that you are representing was missing on [the child]’s hymen? A. Yes. Q. Okay. Thank you. From a medical perspective, when you see absence of tissue, what does that tell you? A. That there was an injury that caused that absence of tissue. Q. Okay. Is there any way to say what caused that tear? A. Just looking at the exam portion by itself, no. Q. When you see an area like that, are you attempting to determine if it’s consistent with the medical history the patient gave you? A. Yes. Q. And in this case, was her injury consistent with the history she gave you? [Objection from Jurgens, which was overruled by the court.] A. Yes. It is consistent with her history of penetration. Q. Okay. Are you able to tell when that would have happened? A. No. Q. Or what the penetration was with? A. No.

Citing State v. Dudley, Jurgens contends that the nurse’s statement, “It is

consistent with her history of penetration,” impermissibly vouched for the child’s

credibility. 856 N.W.2d 668 (Iowa 2014). Dudley does reaffirm that “an expert

witness cannot give testimony that directly or indirectly comments on the child’s

credibility.” Id. at 677. But Dudley is not applicable here. The improper testimony

in Dudley came from an expert opining that a child’s behaviors were consistent

with physical manifestations of psychological trauma after being subjected to

sexual abuse. Id. Here, there was no testimony about the child’s behavior or

psychological trauma. Instead, the nurse was testifying about a physical injury to

the child and noting that it was consistent with the history provided by the child.

See State v. Basquin, No. 17-0057, 2018 WL 1858378, at *2 (Iowa Ct. App. Apr. 18,

2018). And the nurse recognized she could not say what caused the injury or when

the injury occurred. In short, the nurse’s testimony regarding the child’s physical

injury did not amount to vouching testimony. 9

B. Medical Report

Next, Jurgens argues the district court erred by admitting the sexual-assault

nurse’s report of her examination of the child. Jurgens contends the report was

hearsay to which no exception applied.

Hearsay is an out-of-court statement offered “to prove the truth of the matter

asserted in the statement.” Iowa R. Evid. 5.801(c). It is not admissible unless an

exception applies. Iowa R. Evid. 5.802. Here, the district court admitted the

nurse’s medical report containing out-of-court statements from the child under the

exception to the rule against hearsay contained in Iowa Rule of Evidence 5.803(4).

Rule 5.803(4) permits the admission of an out-of-court statement when it

(1) “[i]s made for—and is reasonably pertinent to—medical diagnosis or treatment”;

and (2) “[d]escribes medical history, past or present symptoms or sensations, or

the inception or general cause of symptoms or sensations.” “[T]he first

requirement is directed at the purpose and motive of the statement, and the second

requirement is directed at the content or description of the statement. Yet as to

both requirements, the statements must also ‘be reasonably pertinent to diagnosis

or treatment.’” State v. Smith, 876 N.W.2d 180, 185 (Iowa 2016) (citation omitted).

We permit admission of statements that meet these requirements because “the

circumstances of statements made for diagnosis and treatment provide ‘special

guarantees of credibility’ and justify the exception to the rule against hearsay.” Id.

(citation omitted). As to a child’s “identification of an abuser during treatment with

a healthcare professional,” it is permitted under rule 5.803(4) when the child’s

“motive in making the statement [is] consistent with the purposes of promoting

treatment” and “the content of the statement [is] such [that it] is reasonably relied 10

on by a [medical professional] in treatment or diagnosis.” State v. Skahill, 966

N.W.2d 1, 8 (Iowa 2021) (citations omitted).

Jurgens contends the State failed to establish the first requirement—that

the child was motivated to make the statements describing the abuse from Jurgens

and identifying Jurgens as her abuser to receive medical treatment. In doing so,

he contends the State provided no evidence that the child understood the

importance of only sharing truthful information with the nurse, noting the medical

report contains no notation of such advisory. But the record shows otherwise.

When the child testified at trial about the examination process, she agreed that she

knew the nurse was there to help her, she trusted the nurse, and the nurse

explained to her how important it was to be truthful during the examination. And

the first requirement of rule 5.803(4) is satisfied when a child makes statements

“during a dialogue with a health care professional and [is] not prompted by

concerns extraneous to the [child]’s physical or emotional problem, real or

perceived.” See State v. Hildreth, 582 N.W.2d 167, 170 (Iowa 1998). The

circumstances surrounding the child’s statements to the nurse, a health care

professional, during her medical examination make evident that the child’s

statements were not prompted by extraneous concerns and instead related to her

health. See id.

We move to the second requirement of rule 5.803(4)—“the content of the

statement must be such [that it] is reasonably relied on by a [medical professional]

in treatment or diagnosis.” Skahill, 966 N.W.2d at 8. Jurgens argues that the nurse

did not rely on the child’s statements to provide her with medical treatment, noting

the report’s only mention of follow-up care related to waiting on test results of 11

vaginal cultures. But as the State highlights, the information contained in the

medical report was gathered so that the nurse could provide the child with

appropriate care. It was important that the nurse know who the child claimed

abused her and his role as the child’s stable parental figure to evaluate the child’s

instant emotional and physical health. See 7 Laurie Kratky Doré, Iowa Practice

Series: Evidence § 5.803:4 n.22 (Dec. 2024 update) (“The identity of the abuser

may have an impact on psychological injuries which accompany the offense and,

therefore, treatment of those injuries. Further, doctors have an obligation to

prevent child abuse victims from being returned to the abusive environment.”). As

Jurgens’s identity was relevant to the nurse’s treatment and care of the child, the

second requirement is met.

The district court did not err by admitting the medical report into evidence.

C. Diagram

Finally, Jurgens claims the district court abused its discretion when it

admitted a diagram drawn by the nurse, contending it violated the “best evidence

rule.” The “best evidence rule” is a colloquial reference to Iowa Rule of

Evidence 5.1002, which provides: “An original writing, recording, or photograph is

required to prove its content, unless these rules or a statute provides otherwise.”

See also State v. Krogmann, 998 N.W.2d 141, 155 n.5 (Iowa 2023). “The purpose

of the best evidence rule is to secure the most reliable information as to the

contents of documents, when those terms are disputed.” State v. Khalsa, 542

N.W.2d 263, 268 (Iowa Ct. App. 1995).

At issue here is a diagram drawn by the nurse to illustrate the injury to the

child’s hymenal tissue. The nurse viewed the injury using a colposcope—a 12

magnification device—during her examination of the child. The nurse took

photographs of the injury at that time. While the nurse referenced the photographs

when drawing the diagram, she relied on her memory of what she observed during

her examination of the child to draw the diagram. Jurgens argues the photographs

rather than the nurse’s diagram should have been admitted to show the injury to

the child, so admission of the diagram violated the best-evidence rule.

But Jurgens’s claim fails because the best-evidence rule is not applicable

in this instance. The purpose of the diagram exhibit was to depict the injury to the

child, not the contents of the photographs of the injury to the child. See Krogmann,

998 N.W.2d at 155 n.5. “The [photographs] may have been, in layperson’s terms,

‘the best evidence’ of that” injury, but that does not mean admission of alternative

evidence of that injury implicated the best evidence rule. See id. Moreover, the

nurse’s diagram was not created to reflect the photographs; she drew the diagram

to reflect the injury she personally observed during her examination of the child’s

genitals.

IV. Conclusion

We have considered all the arguments contained in Jurgens’ appellate

briefing, whether or not detailed in this opinion, and conclude all his claims are

without merit. Jurgens’s conviction for second-degree sexual abuse is supported

by substantial evidence, and all his evidentiary challenges fail. Accordingly, we

affirm his conviction.

AFFIRMED.