IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
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No. 24-1949
Filed September 2, 2026
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State of Iowa, Plaintiff–Appellee,
v.
Dequanta Roland Zachary,
Defendant–Appellant.
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Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Pottawattamie County, The Honorable Amy Zacharias, Judge.
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AFFIRMED
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Erin M. Carr of Carr Law Firm, P.L.C., Des Moines, attorney for appellant.
Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Joshua Henry, Assistant Attorney General, attorneys for appellee.
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Considered without oral argument by Tabor, C.J., and Chicchelly and Sandy, JJ.
Opinion by Tabor, C.J.
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TABOR, Chief Judge.
“The long and the short of it is there is three people in a vehicle, the shots are all fired from within the vehicle, and one person is left alive.” So went the prosecution’s theory of the double homicide case brought against Dequanta Zachary, the vehicle’s third occupant. The jury convicted Zachary of two counts of first-degree murder, as well as first-degree theft and being a felon in possession of a firearm.
Zachary disputes the sufficiency of the State’s evidence. He also claims the district court violated his right to a speedy trial by continuing the case to allow newly appointed counsel time to prepare a defense. Because the State presented substantial evidence that Zachary shot Deonte Ivory and Michael Anderson with premeditation and malice aforethought, we will not disturb the verdicts. On the speedy trial challenge, we find Zachary failed to preserve error. But if error was preserved, good cause existed for the continuance. Thus, we affirm his convictions.
I. Facts and Prior Proceedings
One morning in late April 2024, two homicide victims were found in Council Bluffs. One body was discovered on the road outside the Tyson Foods plant. Another was located near the entrance to the Western Historic Trails Center, less than two miles away. The first victim was identified as Deonte Ivory, who died of a single gunshot wound to the left forehead. The second victim was identified as Michael Anderson, who suffered gunshot wounds to his upper chest, right armpit, and right upper torso. The State’s forensic testing showed that the rounds fired at both victims were from the same .380 caliber handgun.
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Both victims knew Zachary through selling or using cocaine. Ivory and his wife, Valencia, were cocaine dealers. Anderson did odd jobs for them in exchange for cocaine. According to Valencia’s testimony, Ivory sold cocaine to Zachary around midnight on April 26. Zachary tried to buy more cocaine in the early morning hours of April 27 but was short on cash. That afternoon, Ivory left his house with Zachary and Anderson in a Dodge Charger. After they left, Valencia realized that Ivory had taken her .380 Ruger handgun with him. She also discovered three ounces of cocaine—worth about $7200— missing from their stash.
The police investigation was able to document the trio’s travels in the Charger across the afternoon and evening of April 27. For several hours that night, they stayed at the American Inn on the southside of Council Bluffs. A visitor to the hotel room recalled the three men listening to music and doing drugs. When Ivory asked the visitor to take him home, Zachary interrupted saying: “We got business to handle.” Ivory changed his mind and decided to stay. As the visitor left at 11:00 p.m., Ivory handed her three ten-dollar bills from “a stack of cash that was folded in half.” She estimated he had at least $400 in cash.
Surveillance footage from the American Inn parking lot showed Zachary, Ivory, and Anderson leaving in the Charger about ten minutes later. They stopped at a gas station, then in the parking lot of an apartment complex in Omaha. Around midnight, the Charger passed by the Tyson plant, pausing at the place where workers getting off the night shift found Ivory’s body about a half hour later.
The police also obtained footage from a surveillance camera posted at a Culver’s restaurant near the Western Historic Trails Center. At 12:25 a.m. on April 28, the Charger pulled into the circle drive. The footage shows two
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flashes, presumably gunshots, followed by a figure going from the driver’s side, around the rear of the parked vehicle to the passenger side. The Charger was parked at the exact location where a passerby walking his dogs found the body around 7:00 a.m.
Meanwhile, the Charger returned to the American Inn at 12:31 a.m.
When it left the parking lot the next morning, surveillance video in the daylight revealed bullet damage to the rear driver-side door and window. Zachary arrived in the Charger at his girlfriend’s apartment in Bellevue, Nebraska around 9:20 a.m. on April 29. He and the girlfriend then drove to a hotel in Glenwood, Iowa, where they stayed most of the day. The Charger was later found abandoned in a ditch off a gravel road in Glenwood.
“[T]he car was an apparent crime scene,” according to Detective Taylor Coffey. He elaborated:
There [were] bullet holes traveling from inside the vehicle out of the vehicle through the rear driver’s-side door. The rear driver’s-side window was broken. There were multiple shell casings throughout the vehicle. There was blood inside the vehicle, broken glass inside the vehicle. . . . There was a rag that had been stuck in the gas tank, and the rag was singed. The entrance to the gas tank was a little bit burnt.
It turns out the Charger belonged to Zachary’s estranged fiancée, who reported it stolen after police obtained a search warrant for her motel room. After interviewing the fiancée, Detective Coffey secured an arrest warrant naming Zachary for the theft of the Charger. A few hours later, Coffey interviewed Zachary in Blair, Nebraska. Zachary denied shooting Ivory and
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Anderson.1 Yet despite his denials, on May 3, police booked Zachary into the Pottawattamie County jail on murder charges.
The district court appointed counsel on May 6. The State filed a trial information on May 13, charging Zachary with two counts of murder in the first degree, as well as theft in the first degree and being a felon in possession of a firearm. In his written arraignment, Zachary asserted his right to a speedy trial under Iowa Rule of Criminal Procedure 2.33(2). The ninety days expired on August 11.
Meanwhile, Zachary had trouble working with counsel. On June 26, he told his public defender, Andrew Munger, that he wanted new representation due to a breakdown in their communication. Zachary complained about the time it took Munger to respond to his inquiries but did not allege further conflict. Before appointing new counsel, the district court warned that “given the seriousness of the charges and the amount of discovery” it would be difficult for another attorney to “be up to speed” by the July 23 trial date. Zachary responded: “I’ll take my chances.”
On June 27, the court appointed John Loos as new counsel. But Loos moved to withdraw on July 1, informing the court that he didn’t have enough time to prepare a defense because Zachary refused to waive speedy trial. At a hearing on July 3, Loos’s supervisor from the Sioux City public defender’s office told the court, “[T]here’s a lot of work to do, and we cannot do it.” The supervisor explained:
We were informed by both the prior counsel and the prosecutor in this case that this case has voluminous information to go through, that
1 As the State points out, Zachary’s appeal does not challenge the prosecution’s proof of his identity as the shooter but only whether the record included sufficient evidence that he acted with premeditation, malice aforethought, and specific intent to kill.
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there was maybe already 3,000 to 5,000 pages and maybe a hundred hours of video to watch that has already been accumulated. . . . And that coming next week is another thirty to forty-five witnesses with more video and pages to review.
The court told Zachary that if he refused to waive speedy trial, its only option was to reappoint attorney Munger, who could be prepared to go to trial in two weeks. Zachary was recalcitrant: “I will not waive my rights and I do not wish to have Mr. Munger on my case.” Over Zachary’s objection, the court allowed Loos to withdraw and reappointed Munger.
That reappointment was short-lived. On July 8, Zachary again moved for new counsel. At a hearing the next day, Munger told the court: “there has been a substantial breakdown in communication to where I would no longer be able to effectively represent Mr. Zachary in this matter.” The court found a conflict and agreed to appoint new counsel but advised Zachary that “appointing a new attorney to represent you is going to require continuing your jury trial. Your new attorney will not be adequately prepared to defend you at trial since it’s only two weeks from today.” At that hearing, the State asked the court to find good cause for setting the trial beyond the ninety-day deadline in rule 2.33. The court did find good cause, noting that Zachary’s “requests for new counsel certainly have impeded the progress of the case.”
On July 9, the court reappointed public defender Loos and continued the trial until October 8. The next day, Loos again moved to withdraw, advising that Zachary would not meet with him. At a hearing on July 11, the court agreed to appoint yet another new attorney but reminded Zachary: “As we’ve talked about before, the more you refuse . . . to work with your attorney, the longer your case is going to be delayed and the longer you’re sitting in jail.” The court appointed the juvenile division of the public defender’s office, which had to withdraw because of a case overload, and then
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appointed the special defense unit, which also withdrew citing a lack of available staff.
Finally, on July 16, the court appointed contract attorney Chad Primmer. Two weeks later, Primmer informed the court that his client refused to work with him and wanted another hearing on substitution of counsel. At an August 15 hearing, Zachary told the court that he wished to withdraw the motion for new counsel. Attorney Primmer represented Zachary at trial.
The trial started on October 14 and lasted until October 21. The State called more than three dozen witnesses and offered hundreds of exhibits. The jury convicted Zachary on all four counts. The district court entered judgment and imposed two life sentences, as well as indeterminate terms of ten years and five years, running them all concurrently.
Zachary appeals.
II. Legal Analysis
Zachary urges two bases for reversal. First, he argues the State offered insufficient evidence to convict him of first-degree murder. Second, he contends the district court violated his right to a speedy trial under Iowa Rule of Criminal Procedure 2.33. We consider those claims in turn.
A. Substantial Evidence of First-Degree Murder
The State offered two theories for the first-degree murder counts—
premeditated murder and felony murder. Zachary contests both theories on appeal. If we find substantial evidence supporting the jury’s verdict on one of the alternatives, we need not consider the other ground. See Iowa Code § 814.28 (2024) (“[A]n appellate court shall not set aside or reverse [a
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general verdict] on the basis of a defective or insufficient theory if one or more of the theories presented and described in the . . . jury instruction is sufficient to sustain the verdict on at least one count.”).
We review sufficiency challenges for correction of legal error and will uphold the verdicts if supported by substantial evidence. State v. Kieffer, 17 N.W.3d 651, 655 (Iowa 2025). Substantial evidence must “convince a rational fact finder the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” State v. Kelso- Christy, 911 N.W.2d 663, 666 (Iowa 2018) (citation omitted). It is the jury’s job to weigh the credibility of witnesses and to accept or reject evidence. See State v. Brimmer, 983 N.W.2d 247, 256 (Iowa 2022). We review its verdict in the light most favorable to the State. Id.
For murder in the first degree under Iowa Code section 707.2(1)(a), the State had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the following elements:
1. On or about April 28, 2024, [Zachary] shot [the victim].
2. [The victim] died as a result of being shot.
3. [Zachary] acted with malice aforethought.
4. [Zachary] acted willfully, deliberately, premeditatedly and with a specific intent to kill [the victim].
On appeal, Zachary contests only the third and fourth elements.
Reviewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the guilty verdicts, we find ample evidence of the contested elements.
First, malice aforethought. That term means “a fixed purpose or design to do some physical harm to another that exists before the act is committed.” State v. Newell, 710 N.W.2d 6, 21 (Iowa 2006) (quoting State v. Buenaventura, 660 N.W.2d 38, 49 (Iowa 2003)). That fixed purpose need not exist for any specific length of time. Buenaventura, 660 N.W.2d at 49. And
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because this element is a state of mind, it is generally proven through circumstantial evidence. Id. For example, evidence of ill will or quarrels between the accused and the victims may support a finding of malice aforethought. Newell, 710 N.W.2d at 21. A jury may also infer malice from the use of a deadly weapon. Buenaventura, 660 N.W.2d at 49.
Zachary contends that the State did not meet its burden because “there was no testimony presented to suggest that [he] had a falling out or harsh feelings toward either [Ivory or Anderson].” But Zachary looks at the record too narrowly.
The jury may have accepted the State’s theory that Zachary—a drug user with no money—killed Ivory to take his cocaine and cash, then killed Anderson “as a loose end to avoid detection.” And harsh feelings or not, it was enough for the State to show that Zachary intentionally used a deadly weapon (here the .380 handgun) in a deadly manner. See State v. LuCore, 989 N.W.2d 209, 217 (Iowa Ct. App. 2023) (“An inference of malice arises simply from the intentional use of a deadly weapon in a deadly manner, regardless of whether there was an opportunity to deliberate.” (cleaned up)).
Forensics revealed that the shooter fired eleven rounds. Three passed through the Charger’s rear driver-side door, three more lodged inside the car door, one in the trunk, one pierced Ivory’s skull, and three penetrated Anderson’s spine and upper back. That flurry of shots from inside the car supported the jury’s finding of malice aforethought.
Next premeditation. The State may prove this element through evidence of (1) planning activity, (2) hostile motive, or (3) “the nature of the killing, including the use of a deadly weapon combined with an opportunity to deliberate.” Buenaventura, 660 N.W.2d at 48. Zachary argues that the
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record “lacked any testimony to prove [he] had a plan or motive to shoot either victim.” As noted above, the jury could have inferred a motive from Zachary’s desire to steal Ivory’s cocaine or cash. But again, the nature of these shootings supported this element. Zachary disputes the State’s proof of his opportunity to deliberate. But the sheer number of shots supports the element of premeditation here. The jury could determine the shooter “pondered or thought about his conduct before each pull of the trigger.” State v. Ricke, No. 24-1364, 2025 WL 2237352, at *3 (Iowa Ct. App. Aug. 6, 2025) (quoting State v. Thomas, No. 19-0379, 2020 WL 5651563, at *4 (Iowa Ct. App. Sept. 23, 2020)). Similarly, the locations of the victims’ wounds support the element of premeditation too. See State v. Fourkiller, No. 23- 0714, 2024 WL 1296688, at *3 (Iowa Ct. App. Mar. 27, 2024) (recognizing “the head and torso are areas of the body that are highly vulnerable to fatal injury”).
Finally, Zachary’s actions after the shootings bolster the inference of a hostile motive and premeditation. See Buenaventura, 660 N.W.2d at 49. His callous dumping of the bodies at two locations underscores his plan to conceal the deaths and avoid detection.
On this record, the district court did not err in finding sufficient evidence of malice aforethought and premeditation to submit the first-degree murder charges to the jury. We affirm those verdicts.
B. Speedy Trial
Zachary next argues that the district court mistakenly found good cause to continue his trial beyond the ninety-day deadline in rule 2.33(2). We start with the language of the rule:
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It is the public policy of the State of Iowa that criminal prosecutions be concluded at the earliest possible time consistent with a fair trial to both parties. Applications for dismissals under this rule may be made by the prosecuting attorney or the defendant or by the court on its own motion.
. . . . b. The defendant must be brought to trial within 90 days after indictment is found or the court must order the indictment be dismissed unless good cause to the contrary is shown.
Iowa R. Crim. P. 2.33(2).
“We review a district court’s application of the procedural rules governing speedy trial for correction of errors at law.” State v. McNeal, 897 N.W.2d 697, 703 (Iowa 2017).
But before reviewing the merits of Zachary’s claim, we consider the State’s argument that he failed to preserve error. As the State points out, “[w]hile Zachary professed his desire to exercise [his right to a speedy trial], he never filed a motion to dismiss following the court’s alleged violation of it.” In reply, Zachary insists that he “raised the issue by repeatedly invoking his right to a speedy trial in court and explicitly refusing to waive that right.” The State has the stronger position. Invoking the right to a speedy trial is not the same as seeking to enforce that right by moving to dismiss. Rule 2.33(2) expects a defendant to file an “application[] for dismissal” to enforce the right to be tried within ninety days of indictment. Because Zachary did not move to dismiss the case on speedy trial grounds, he did not preserve error. See State v. Lyons, 16 N.W.3d 66, 73 (Iowa Ct. App. 2024); see also State v. Schiernbeck, 203 N.W.2d 546, 547 (Iowa 1973) (finding error not preserved because defendant did not obtain a ruling on his motion to dismiss).
Even if error was preserved by the district court’s finding that good cause existed to extend the ninety-day speedy trial deadline to accommodate the appointment of new counsel, Zachary is not entitled to relief. Dismissal
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under the rule is not required if the State proves (1) that defendant waived speedy trial, (2) the delay beyond the deadline was attributable to the defendant, or (3) good cause existed for the delay. State v. Campbell, 714 N.W.2d 622, 627–28 (Iowa 2006). Here, the district court correctly concluded that good cause existed for extending the speedy-trial deadline based on Zachary’s repeated conflicts with his attorneys, the resulting substitution of counsel, and the corresponding need for more time to allow new counsel to complete discovery and prepare for trial. See id. at 629. This record supported the finding of good cause.
AFFIRMED.