State of Iowa v. Kassy Carren Flores

• Court: Court of Appeals of Iowa
• Decided: January 23, 2025
• Docket: 24-0164
• Status: Published

Opinion

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 24-0164 Filed January 23, 2025

STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff-Appellee,

vs.

KASSY CARREN FLORES, Defendant-Appellant. ________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Linn County, Russell G. Keast,

Judge.

A criminal defendant attempts to appeal a simple-misdemeanor conviction.

APPEAL DISMISSED.

William Monroe, Burlington, for appellant.

Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Adam Kenworthy, Assistant Attorney

General, for appellee.

Considered by Ahlers, P.J., and Badding and Buller, JJ. 2

BULLER, Judge.

Kassy Flores bit a police officer and resisted arrest. Although she was also

convicted of an indictable offense in the district court, Flores only attempts to

appeal her conviction for interference with official acts, a simple misdemeanor in

violation of Iowa Code section 719.1(1)(b) (2022). But her conviction was entered

following trial by jury with the full procedures of the district court, so she cannot

appeal as a matter of right. See Tyrrell v. Iowa Dist. Ct., 413 N.W.2d 674, 675

(Iowa 1987) (“We do not believe it was the intent of the legislature that a person

actually convicted of a simple misdemeanor under district court procedures should

have an appeal as a matter of right.”); Iowa Code § 814.6(1)(a)(1). While Flores

could have sought discretionary review under section 814.6(2)(d), she did not do

so by application, motion, or brief.

To invoke our extraordinary jurisdiction by discretionary review, Flores had

to “state with particularity the grounds upon which discretionary review should be

granted.” Iowa R. App. P. 6.106(1)(e). She has not offered any reason justifying

discretionary review. And the issues raised in her brief are largely unpreserved,

except for a routine sufficiency challenge she was not required to make below after

the supreme court’s decision in State v. Crawford, 972 N.W.2d 189, 201 (Iowa

2022). We find Flores received “substantial justice” in the district court. Iowa R.

App. P. 6.106(2).

To the extent we could construe Flores’s appellate brief as an application

for discretionary review, see Iowa R. App. 6.151, we deny the application. And we

dismiss this attempted appeal for lack of jurisdiction.