State of Iowa v. Cody Michael Kern

Opinion

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

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No. 25-1042

Filed August 19, 2026

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State of Iowa, Plaintiff–Appellee,

v.

Cody Michael Kern, Defendant–Appellant.

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Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, The Honorable Michael D. Huppert, Judge.

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AFFIRMED

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Martha J. Lucey, State Appellate Defender, and Ella M. Newell, Assistant Appellate Defender, attorneys for appellant.

Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Katherine Wenman, Assistant Attorney General, attorneys for appellee.

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Considered without oral argument by Ahlers, P.J., Chicchelly, J., and Bower, S.J.

Opinion by Chicchelly, J.

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CHICCHELLY, Judge.

Cody Kern appeals his convictions for second-degree harassment and false imprisonment. On appeal, he argues (1) there was insufficient evidence supporting the convictions, and (2) the district court erred in several of its evidentiary rulings. Upon our review, we affirm Kern’s convictions.

BACKGROUND FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS In early 2025, Kern allowed his father and his father’s wife to live with him. His father’s marriage was tumultuous, and that manifested while the couple lived with Kern. On one occasion, the father’s dog was shot after a dog fight. On another occasion, the father body-slammed his wife because police officers were in the neighborhood and he assumed she called the police on him. After these incidents, Kern offered to drive the wife back to a house in which they had previously resided in Grimes, and she agreed.

A few days later, the wife was in the Grimes house when she heard the father’s voice through the house security system cameras. Hearing that he was angry, the wife ran to the basement and hid in a closet. She remained in the closet until she heard footsteps coming to the basement. Kern arrived, opened the closet, and told his father’s wife to “get [her] ass upstairs.” While in the basement, the wife watched as Kern accessed a closet where tools were kept.

Kern then directed the wife to the kitchen. Kern had a hammer in one hand and a set of hair clippers in the other. The kitchen floor was covered in white garbage bags. Seeing the kitchen, the wife tried to leave the house by exiting through the back door, but Kern stood in front of it preventing her from leaving.

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Stuck in the kitchen, Kern ordered the wife to her knees and told her to shave her hair off. Because the wife was defiant, Kern tried to shave her head himself. Then, the wife took the clippers and shaved a small amount of her hair but no more. Kern told her to “fucking do it, I’m gonna fucking kill you right now.” The wife stood up and ran to a bedroom where another person stayed. Kern then came to the room with the wife’s phone and ordered her to enter her password. The wife refused, and Kern left the room momentarily.

While he was gone, the wife was able to escape from the home through the bedroom window and ran to a nearby bar. Once at the bar, patrons saw that the front left section of the wife’s hair was clean-shaven. One of the patrons gave the wife a phone which she used to call the police. Officers arrived and spoke to the wife. They then went to the house and discovered the hammer, garbage bags, hair clippers, and the wife’s cut hair in the kitchen. Kern’s father yelled obscenities at the officers through the home’s security cameras.

The State charged Kern with assault while displaying a dangerous weapon in violation of Iowa Code section 708.2(3) (2025), first-degree harassment in violation of Iowa Code section 708.7(2), and false imprisonment in violation of Iowa Code section 710.7. The case proceeded to trial in June 2025. The jury found Kern not guilty of the assault charge but convicted him of a lesser included offense of second-degree harassment, and false imprisonment. The district court sentenced Kern to 365 days in jail with all but thirty days suspended followed by a one-year term of probation. Kern now appeals.

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DISCUSSION

I. Sufficiency of Evidence

Kern first challenges the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his convictions for second-degree harassment and false imprisonment. We review claims challenging the sufficiency of the evidence for correction of errors at law. State v. Mathis, 971 N.W.2d 514, 516 (Iowa 2022). “In reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence, we are highly deferential to the jury’s verdict,” and we are bound by it “if it is supported by substantial evidence.” Id. Evidence is substantial if it can convince a rational fact finder of the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. at 516–17. To determine if “the jury’s verdict is supported by substantial evidence, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the State.” Id. at 517. This includes reasonable inferences and presumptions deduced from the record. Id. We address each conviction in turn.

A. Second-Degree Harassment

We begin by evaluating the sufficiency of the evidence supporting Kern’s convictions for second-degree harassment. In order to convict Kern of second-degree harassment the State was required to prove the following elements:

1. On or about February 16, 2025, the defendant purposefully had personal contact with [the victim].

2. The defendant communicated a threat to commit bodily injury . . . .

3. The defendant did so with the specific intent to intimidate, annoy, or alarm [the victim] without a legitimate purpose.

See Iowa Code § 708.7(3). The jury was further instructed that “bodily injury” means “physical pain, illness, or any impairment of physical condition.” Kern challenges the second element and argues that shaving

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someone’s head without other injury does not qualify as bodily injury. But the jury was instructed that only a “threat to commit bodily injury” was required. (emphasis added). And unchallenged jury instructions become the law of the case for purposes of our review of sufficiency of the evidence. See Mathis, 971 N.W.2d at 518. So, we only review the record to ascertain whether Kern threatened to commit bodily injury on the wife.

The State points us to the Kern’s threats to the victim while armed with the hammer. Kern responds in his reply brief that we may not consider that testimony because the jury acquitted Kern of assault while displaying a dangerous weapon and harassment in the first degree and our consideration of the facts forming the basis for those charges would violate the double jeopardy clauses of the Iowa and U.S. Constitutions. It is true that it is [i]nherent in our standard of review of jury verdicts in criminal cases is the recognition that the jury was free to reject certain evidence, and credit other evidence.” State v. Nitcher, 720 N.W.2d 547, 556 (Iowa 2006) But our supreme court has long held that juries may reach different conclusions based on the evidence. See State v. Boyd, 200 N.W. 205, 206 (Iowa 1924). That is why our review is on the evidence that was before the jury and the verdict the jury ultimately reached.

Here, when viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the jury’s verdict, we conclude there was substantial evidence to sustain a conviction for second-degree harassment. “Threats need not be explicit; they may be made by innuendo or suggestion” and need only “be definite and understandable by a reasonable person of ordinary intelligence.” State v. Crone, 545 N.W.2d 267, 271 (Iowa 1996) (en banc), abrogated on other grounds by State v. Crawford, 972 N.W.2d 189, 198 (Iowa 2022). We conclude the jury could have interpreted Kern’s statement to “fucking do it, I’m gonna fucking

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kill you right now” as a threat to inflict bodily injury. At the time, he was armed with both a hammer and a set of hair clippers. Both could be used to inflict bodily injury. When taken in context, the wife testified to the jury that “[Kern] attempted to try to shave my hair for me, and I said I’ll do it. Think of your daughter. I don’t know why you're doing this, and I don’t understand. And I took the hair clippers and started shaving my own hair because I thought he was going to hit me with the hammer.” Based on this testimony, we conclude the jury could have found Kern threatened to strike the wife with the hammer and to forcibly shave her head against her will, and the jury could reasonably find that those were threats to cause bodily injury. Accordingly, we find there is substantial evidence to sustain a conviction for second-degree harassment.

B. False Imprisonment

Next, we address the sufficiency of the conviction for false imprisonment. In order to convict Kern of false imprisonment, the State was required to prove the following elements:

1. On or about Febuary 16, 2025, the defendant intentionally confined [the victim].

2. [The victim] was confined against her will. 3. The defendant did not have a reasonable belief that he had a right or authority to confine [the victim].

The jury was further instructed:

A person is “confined” when her freedom to move about is substantially restricted by force, threat or deception. The person may be confined either in the place where the restriction began or in a place to which she has been removed. No minimum time of confinement is required. It must be more than slight.

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When viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the jury’s verdict, we conclude that there is substantial evidence of false imprisonment. When the wife attempted to run out of the house after being brought to the kitchen, and Kern used his body to physically block the doorway preventing her from leaving, he intentionally confined her against her will. And the testimony is clear that the wife’s will was to leave the house at that point. Kern has advanced no theory of authority to confine her. So, we conclude there is substantial evidence.

Kern urges however that the confinement must be “more than what is inherently required to commit the underlying offense” under our supreme court’s decision in State v. Rich, 305 N.W.2d 739, 745 (Iowa 1981). The heart of Rich was the three-pronged test used for determining whether confinement or removal exceeded that normally incident to the commission of sexual abuse. See State v. Robinson, 859 N.W.2d 464, 475 (Iowa 2015). But the Rich factors were never instructed to the jury. And because the instructions were not challenged, they became the law of the case for the purpose of reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence. See State v. Heiller, 33 N.W.3d 164, 174 (Iowa 2026). Therefore, Kern is unable to argue for the Rich factors on appeal. Accordingly, we find sufficient evidence supports both of Kern’s convictions.

II. Evidentiary Rulings

Kern then challenges a slew of the district court’s evidentiary rulings under Iowa Rules of Evidence 5.403 and 5.404. Kern’s argument is that the district court abused its discretion when it allowed testimony regarding Kern’s father’s conduct relating to the dog fight, violence towards the wife, his concerns about law enforcement being in the neighborhood, and his threats to law enforcement when they arrived. Kern also believes the district

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court abused its discretion by admitting evidence relating to the presence of cameras throughout the house that the father could access.

Our review of these evidentiary rulings is for an abuse of discretion.

State v. Huston, 825 N.W.2d 531, 536 (Iowa 2013). “A district court abuses its discretion when it bases its decisions on grounds or reasons clearly untenable or to an extent that is clearly unreasonable” or “if it bases its conclusions on an erroneous application of the law.” Stender v. Blessum, 897 N.W.2d 491, 501 (Iowa 2017). The party alleging error has the burden to establish that the district court abused its discretion in making its decision on admissibility. McClure v. Walgreen Co., 613 N.W.2d 225, 235 (Iowa 2000) (en banc).

First, we agree with the State that much of this evidence was admitted at trial without objection. And we are reluctant to find that error is preserved despite the objections at trial because the district court responded to Kern’s trial attorney’s request for a standing objection by stating, “I’m not sure I can give you a standing objection because, again, the contours are somewhat unclear, so you're going to have to object as it goes.”

Second, and more importantly, we find the admitted evidence was inextricably intertwined with the charged conduct in this case. “Inextricably intertwined evidence is evidence of the surrounding circumstances of the crime in a causal, temporal, or spatial sense, incidentally revealing additional, but uncharged, criminal activity.” State v. Nelson, 791 N.W.2d 414, 420 (Iowa 2010) (citation omitted). And this doctrine of admissibility bypasses rule 5.404(b). See id. The challenged evidence here exists in the context of the days leading up to this incident and explains the dynamics within the home. Our supreme court has long held this contextual evidence is admissible “to complete the story of what happened.” See id. at 422

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(emphasis omitted) (collecting cases dating back to 1915). We find that occurred in this case.

Even assuming the evidence in this case was improperly admitted, we would find any error was harmless for several reasons. First, much of the evidence to which Kern now objects was cumulative to other evidence admitted at trial without objection. See State v. Pirie, 18 N.W.3d 238, 246 (Iowa 2025). Second, all the evidence revolves around the conduct of Kern’s father, and to quote Kern’s brief “the State offered no evidence to connect this testimony to Mr. Kern, who was actually on trial.” Accordingly, we find there was lessened risk that the evidence would prejudice Kern. So, we conclude any error was harmless.

CONCLUSION

Because we find substantial evidence supports both convictions, and the challenged evidence was inextricably intertwined with the charged conduct in this case, we affirm Kern’s convictions.

AFFIRMED.