State of Iowa v. Jovonte Eric Washington

• Court: Court of Appeals of Iowa
• Decided: October 1, 2025
• Docket: 24-2058
• Status: Published

Opinion

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 24-2058 Filed October 1, 2025

STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff-Appellee,

vs.

JOVONTE ERIC WASHINGTON, Defendant-Appellant. ________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Linn County, Elizabeth Dupuich,

Judge.

A defendant appeals his sentence for second-degree theft. AFFIRMED.

Webb L. Wassmer of Wassmer Law Office, PLC, Marion, for appellant.

Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Martha E. Trout, Assistant Attorney

General, for appellee.

Considered without oral argument by Schumacher, P.J., and Badding and

Langholz, JJ. 2

LANGHOLZ, Judge.

Jovonte Washington stole a car while its driver briefly left it running and

unlocked to retrieve a forgotten wallet. Washington was arrested for this crime

and eventually pleaded guilty to second-degree theft in violation of Iowa Code

sections 714.1 and 714.2(2) (2024). At sentencing—consistent with the

recommendation in the presentence investigation report—Washington argued that

he should receive a suspended prison sentence and be placed on probation. But

the district court agreed with the State and imposed a five-year indeterminate

prison sentence. On appeal, Washington argues that the court abused its

discretion in selecting this sentence. Yet we see no abuse of the district court’s

considerable sentencing discretion and thus affirm Washington’s sentence.

We review a district court’s discretionary sentencing decisions for an abuse

of discretion. See State v. Gordon, 998 N.W.2d 859, 862 (Iowa 2023). This

deferential standard of review recognizes that the court’s decision “to impose a

particular sentence within the statutory limits is cloaked with a strong presumption

in its favor.” State v. Formaro, 638 N.W.2d 720, 724 (Iowa 2002). And even when

the court would have been justified in imposing the sentence sought by the

defendant, “our task on appeal is not to second guess the decision made by the

district court, but to determine if it was unreasonable or based on untenable

grounds.” Id. at 725. So it is not enough that the defendant disagrees with the

court’s weighing of the sentencing factors and the sentence ultimately selected.

See Gordon, 998 N.W.2d at 863 (“The test for whether a sentencing court abused

its discretion is not whether we might have weighed the various factors

differently.”); see also Iowa Code § 901.5. 3

Washington argues that the district court abused its discretion mainly

because one of its reasons for selecting the prison sentence rather than a

suspended sentence and probation was that Washington’s “prior performance on

probation has been poor” resulting in “a deferred judgment [being] revoked.”

According to Washington, the court should not have given this fact much weight

because the court “did not have before it any reasons why the deferred judgment

was revoked” and the circumstances of the revocation suggest “that any violation

of probation was not particularly severe.” But it was not unreasonable or untenable

for the court to consider the revocation of Washington’s past deferred judgment in

assessing the appropriateness of probation here—regardless of the severity of his

conduct resulting in that revocation.

What’s more, the revocation of the deferred judgment was not the only

factor considered by the district court in selecting the five-year prison sentence and

deciding not to suspend the sentence. The court also considered Washington’s

“robust criminal history”—even while only in his late twenties—which included

several other past criminal convictions—including operating-while-intoxicated and

eluding convictions that arose from the circumstances of his arrest for this offense

while he was driving the stolen car.

At bottom, Washington merely asks us to reweigh the sentencing factors

and exercise our own judgment of an appropriate sentence. But that is not our

proper role on appeal. See Gordon, 998 N.W.2d at 863. Seeing no abuse of

discretion in the district court’s exercise of its sentencing judgment, we affirm

Washington’s sentence.

AFFIRMED.