State of Iowa v. Douglas Neal Warburton

• Court: Court of Appeals of Iowa
• Decided: August 20, 2025
• Docket: 24-1143
• Status: Published

Opinion

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 24-1143 Filed August 20, 2025

STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff-Appellee,

vs.

DOUGLAS NEAL WARBURTON, Defendant-Appellant. ________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Worth County, Gregg R. Rosenbladt,

Judge.

A defendant appeals the sentence imposed by the district court.

AFFIRMED.

Karmen R. Anderson, Des Moines, for appellant.

Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Genevieve Reinkoester, Assistant

Attorney General, for appellee.

Considered without oral argument by Tabor, C.J., and Ahlers and

Langholz, JJ. 2

AHLERS, Judge.

Douglas Warburton entered an Alford plea1 to the crime of lascivious acts

with a child, a class “C” felony—a crime committed against Warburton’s family

member. The plea was accepted, and the district court sentenced Warburton to

serve an indeterminate term of incarceration not to exceed ten years.

Warburton appeals. He attempts to raise three issues: (1) the court erred

by refusing to resentence Warburton after he filed a motion asking the court to

consider a victim impact statement from his family member; (2) the court abused

its discretion by considering the recommendation for incarceration contained in the

presentence investigation report (PSI) because the recommendation was not

adequately supported; and (3) the court abused its discretion by imposing a prison

sentence rather than suspending it.

We do not have jurisdiction to address the first issue because it originates

from a post-sentencing order from which Warburton did not appeal. Warburton

was sentenced on June 24, 2024, and a written sentencing order was filed the

same day. The next day, Warburton filed a motion objecting to the fact that no

victim impact statement was given and asking the court “to reset the matter for a

sentencing hearing in order to allow the victim to be heard.” On July 1, the State

filed a victim impact statement and a resistance to Warburton’s motion. In the

resistance, the State informed the court that it had received the victim impact

statement on June 26—two days after the sentencing hearing. The court denied

1 See North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25, 37 (1970) (permitting a person charged

with a crime to “voluntarily, knowingly, and understandingly consent to the imposition of” a criminal conviction and sentence even if the person “is unwilling or unable to admit his [or her] participation in the acts constituting the crime”). 3

Warburton’s motion on July 10. On July 12, Warburton filed his notice of appeal.

The notice stated that Warburton “appeals from the final judgment entered

on June 24, 2024, and sentencing entered on June 24, 2024, and all adverse

rulings therein.” The notice makes no mention of his motion for resentencing or

the court’s denial of it, nor did he file a separate notice of appeal as to the July 10

order. Because Warburton did not file a notice of appeal disputing that order, we

do not have jurisdiction to consider challenges to it. See State v. Smith, 17 N.W.3d

355, 363 (Iowa 2025) (“[W]hen the district court addresses an issue in an order

‘following the entry of a judgment and sentence, any appeal from a ruling on th[at]

issue must be separately appealed. A defendant cannot rely upon the notice of

appeal from the judgment and sentence of the district court.’” (second alteration in

original) (quoting State v. Formaro, 638 N.W.2d 720, 727 (Iowa 2002))).

We also cannot address the second issue about defects in the PSI because

Warburton failed to preserve it for our review. During the sentencing hearing, the

court gave Warburton the opportunity to object and propose corrections to the PSI.

Warburton noted an inaccuracy regarding his contact with family members—a

proposed correction to which the State did not object and the court accepted—but

otherwise noted “[t]here are no errors or corrections to the PSI” and “we have no

other corrections to the PSI and no objection to the court’s use of the PSI.”

Although most sentencing challenges are not subject to error-preservation rules,

there are exceptions, and one of those exceptions pertains to PSIs. State v.

Chawech, 15 N.W.3d 78, 85 (Iowa 2024). Because Iowa Code

section 901.4 (2024) permits a defendant to raise objections to a PSI, the district

court is permitted to consider all parts of the PSI that are not challenged. Id. “And 4

if the defendant fails to object to alleged defects in the [PSI] prior to the entry of

sentence, the defendant will not be allowed to attack the sentence based on those

defects.” Id. That is the situation we have here. Warburton did not object to the

PSI’s recommendation by claiming an insufficient basis for the recommendation.

As such, he has failed to preserve error to challenge that claimed defect, so we do

not address the merits of this issue. See id.

Finally, we turn to Warburton’s claim that the district court abused its

discretion by imposing a prison sentence rather than granting him probation. 2

When, as here, the sentence is within statutory parameters, we review for abuse

of discretion. State v. Luke, 4 N.W.3d 450, 455 (Iowa 2024).

One way a district court can abuse its discretion is by following a fixed

sentencing policy. See State v. Hildebrand, 280 N.W.2d 393, 396 (Iowa 1979)

(finding an abuse of discretion by following a fixed sentencing policy). Warburton

claims this is what the district court did. He has the burden to establish such

impropriety because “[w]e will not draw an inference of improper sentencing

considerations which are not apparent from the record.” See Formaro, 638 N.W.2d

at 725. But the only thing Warburton points to is that “[t]he court talked about the

age of the victim as a consideration for a prison sentence.” He contends that,

because his crime is by definition a crime against a child, to rely on the age of the

victim as a consideration means the court followed a fixed sentencing policy. We

disagree. Nothing about the court’s comments suggests a fixed policy against

2 We have jurisdiction to hear this challenge despite Warburton’s guilty plea because he has established good cause by challenging his sentence that was neither mandatory nor agreed upon pursuant to a plea agreement. See Iowa Code § 814.6(1)(a)(3); State v. Damme, 944 N.W.2d 98, 105 (Iowa 2020). 5

suspending a sentence imposed against a defendant who commits a sex crime

against a child, as Warburton suggests. The court referred to the victim’s age—

between the age of five and nine years old—only in the context of discussing the

nature of the offense, which is a factor the court was required to consider in making

the decision whether to suspend the sentence. See Iowa Code § 907.5(1)(f).

Rather than demonstrating reliance on a fixed sentencing policy, the court’s

comments about the victim’s age were simply part of its thorough consideration of

relevant sentencing factors.

The remainder of Warburton’s argument is devoted to pointing out

mitigating factors such as his lack of criminal history, proper conduct while on

pretrial release, family support, and stable employment. The problem for

Warburton is that the court considered all these mitigating factors and others. But

it also considered aggravating factors, such as Warburton being in a position of

trust as one of the victim’s legal custodians when he committed the crime and the

fact that he was sixty-six years old, so the crime could not be chalked up to youthful

indiscretion. After balancing these factors, the court landed on the decision to send

Warburton to prison rather than to suspend his sentence. Warburton’s argument

amounts to asking us to weigh the relevant factors differently than the district court.

But that is not our role. The decision of how much weight to give relevant

sentencing factors falls within the district court’s discretion. State v. Wright, 340

N.W.2d 590, 593 (Iowa 1983) (“The right of an individual judge to balance the

relevant factors in determining an appropriate sentence inheres in the discretionary

standard.”). As we find no abuse of the court’s discretion, we affirm.