State of Iowa v. Lasondra A. Johnson

• Court: Supreme Court of Iowa
• Decided: May 31, 2024
• Docket: 21-1891
• Status: Published

Opinion

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF IOWA

No. 21–1891

Submitted April 4, 2024—Filed May 31, 2024

STATE OF IOWA,

Appellee,

vs.

LASONDRA A. JOHNSON,

Appellant.

On review from the Iowa Court of Appeals.

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Black Hawk County, Joel A.

Dalrymple, Judge.

The defendant seeks further review of the court of appeals ruling that

affirmed the district court’s conviction and sentence for assault causing injury.

DECISION OF COURT OF APPEALS VACATED; DISTRICT COURT JUDGMENT REVERSED AND REMANDED. McDermott, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which all justices joined.

Martha J. Lucey, State Appellate Defender, and Mary K. Conroy (argued),

Assistant Appellate Defender, for appellant.

Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Bridget A. Chambers (argued),

Assistant Attorney General, for appellee. 2

MCDERMOTT, Justice. The State charged Lasondra Johnson with first-degree murder stemming

from a series of events that resulted in Johnson shooting and killing Jada Young-

Mills. Johnson claimed she shot Mills in self-defense. As part of her defense,

Johnson argued that her actions were justified under Iowa’s “stand your ground”

law, which modifies the usual requirement that a person facing an imminent

threat must retreat, if possible, before resorting to the use of force. Iowa Code

§ 704.1(3) (2020). Under this law, people need not retreat from a place before

using force if they are lawfully present and are not engaged in illegal activity. The

jury acquitted Johnson of first-degree murder but found her guilty of the lesser

included offense of assault causing serious injury.

Johnson appealed, arguing that the district court erroneously instructed

the jury on the stand-your-ground defense and a related instruction on the pre-

sumed reasonableness of using deadly force. She argues that there was no evi-

dence to support an instruction to the jury that she was engaged in a separate

illegal activity—assault—at the time of the shooting. Johnson also argues that

at sentencing, the district court imposed an unconstitutional restitution award

against her and erred in relying on improper considerations and by applying a fixed sentencing policy. The court of appeals affirmed her conviction but reversed

the restitution order. We granted her application for further review.

I.

Late one night in November 2020, Johnson and Christopher Harrington (a

man she had dated off-and-on for about three years) drove in Johnson’s SUV to

visit Christopher’s mother, Sherry Harrington. Sherry was staying at the home

of Christopher’s sister, Shara Harrington. When they arrived at Shara’s house,

Christopher parked along the street outside, then went inside the house while 3

Johnson waited in the SUV. Shara was not home, having gone to a bar with two

of her friends, Gloria Boldon and Mills, earlier that evening.

About ten minutes later, Mills, Boldon, and Shara arrived together in a

car. They pulled up next to Johnson’s SUV so that the vehicles were parallel,

with the driver’s side windows facing one another. The four women spoke

through open windows for several minutes. Eventually Mills, Boldon, and Shara

parked their car along the street and got into Johnson’s SUV.

Witnesses presented conflicting evidence at trial about what happened

next. According to Shara and Boldon, the conversation in the SUV started

friendly but took a turn when Johnson and Mills, who were seated next to each

other in the front seat, began yelling back and forth about the quality of hair

Mills had sold to Johnson for a wig. Shara and Boldon testified that Johnson

pushed Mills during the argument, and the two began fighting.

Christopher testified that he, Sherry, and Shara’s fourteen-year-old niece

came out of the house when the fighting began. He testified that Johnson told

Mills to get out of her SUV, and Mills responded, “Bitch, move me,” just before

Johnson pushed Mills.

According to Johnson, she asked the women to leave her vehicle three times before Mills replied, “Bitch, you gonna have to move me,” prompting John-

son to lean over and open the door next to Mills. Johnson testified that Mills

then grabbed her by her hair and yanked her out of the SUV. Video captured by

a recording device on a neighboring house, although too distant to make out

distinct movements, shows where the fight occurred and how long it lasted.

Shara testified that Johnson and Mills began fighting, pulling wigs off each

other, grabbing each other, and rolling on the ground. She testified that

Christopher and Sherry broke up the fight, but when Johnson got back into her SUV, a second fight broke out. Both Christopher and Johnson testified that Mills 4

never stopped attacking Johnson and continued to follow her when she got back

in her SUV, telling Johnson that she had a gun. It was at this point, according

to Johnson, that she feared for her life.

Shara then began arguing with Christopher and hit him. Shara testified

that Johnson soon “came out of the top of her vehicle or the window and she

shot her gun.” Boldon testified similarly, stating that she and Mills had begun

walking to their own cars when they heard a “pow.” The niece testified that John-

son, right before shooting Mills, said, “Where your gun at now, bitch?” The bullet

struck Mills in the chest.

The witnesses gave further conflicting testimony about whether Mills and

Shara were following Johnson and trying to attack her in the SUV before

Johnson fired the gun. The niece testified that Mills was not attempting to get

into Johnson’s vehicle. Christopher testified to precisely the opposite. Johnson

testified that she was shoved into her vehicle by Mills and Shara, grabbed her

gun from the glovebox, and shot the gun into the air without aiming, intending

only to get the women to stop attacking her. She testified that after firing the

gun, she went into a state of shock. Christopher entered the driver’s side of

Johnson’s SUV and drove them away. Johnson stated that she did not know that anyone had been shot.

Law enforcement arrived shortly after the shooting, just after midnight,

and attempted to give aid to Mills. Paramedics arrived and transported Mills,

who was now unconscious, to the hospital. She never regained consciousness

and died at the hospital. She died from a single gunshot wound to the chest.

Police officers interviewed two neighbors, Beau and Denise Olson, who wit-

nessed the fight while outside smoking. Beau died before the trial, but Denise 5

testified, saying that at first, the group of people fighting were “all bunched to-

gether,” but later “it did look like it was quite a few against one person.” Denise

testified,

The main part that really stuck with me was whenever one of -- who- ever the group was fighting, she was kind of, like, in between the sidewalk and her car, and I don’t know if he was a boyfriend or a friend or whatever, but he was trying to get, like, the other group of girls off of her at the time.

Although Denise did not see a gun, she saw a flash from a gun. After seeing the

flash, she and Beau went into their house and Beau called the police. Police

interviewed the Olsons about thirty minutes later. Denise told officers that the

group of women “kept kind of going at that one girl.” Beau told the officers that

the one woman kept trying to get away from the others and into her vehicle.

Johnson contacted the police around 2:30 a.m. She voluntarily came to

the police station soon after, cooperated with law enforcement, and turned over

the gun and magazine used in the shooting.

The State charged Johnson with first-degree murder in violation of Iowa

Code § 707.2(1)(a), a class “A” felony. At trial, Johnson raised a stand-your-

ground defense, claiming she was justified in shooting Mills and had no duty to

retreat before using reasonable force because the women attacking her were try- ing to follow her into her vehicle and she feared for her life. The State argued

that Johnson was not justified in using force because the fight was over and the

women were walking away from, not toward, Johnson’s vehicle.

The jury acquitted Johnson of first-degree murder and a series of lesser

included offenses (second-degree murder, voluntary manslaughter, involuntary

manslaughter (both the public offense and recklessness alternatives), attempt to

commit murder, willful injury causing serious injury, and willful injury causing bodily injury). She was convicted of the lesser included offense of assault causing 6

serious injury in violation of Iowa Code § 708.2(4), a class “D” felony. The district

court sentenced her to five years in prison, ordered her to pay a fine, and

awarded $150,000 in restitution to Mills’s estate. The court of appeals affirmed

her conviction but vacated the district court’s award of $150,000 in victim resti-

tution because the jury’s verdict lacked a finding that the assault caused Mills’s

death. We granted further review.

II.

Johnson argues that the jury instructions failed to correctly instruct the

jury on her justification defense. The instructions were misleading and confus-

ing, Johnson argues, because there was no evidence that she was engaged in a

separate assault at the time she fired the gun and thus no “illegal activity” that

permitted the jury to reject her stand-your-ground defense and deadly force pre-

sumption. Johnson also argues that the district court imposed an unconstitu-

tional restitution award totaling $150,000 and erred in sentencing her by relying

on improper considerations and by applying a fixed sentencing policy.

We first address Johnson’s challenge to the jury instructions. An error in

a jury instruction does not warrant reversal unless it prejudiced the complaining

party. State v. Hanes, 790 N.W.2d 545, 548 (Iowa 2010). Prejudice results, and reversal is required, “when jury instructions mislead the jury or materially mis-

state the law.” State v. Benson, 919 N.W.2d 237, 241–42 (Iowa 2018). “[T]he

court’s instructions must convey the applicable law in such a way that the jury

has a clear understanding of the issues it must decide.” State v. Davis, 951

N.W.2d 8, 17 (Iowa 2020) (quoting Thompson v. City of Des Moines, 564 N.W.2d

839, 846 (Iowa 1997)).

Johnson argues that the court erred in two instructions in particular: In-

structions 55 and 58. Instruction 55 stated: 7

If any of the following is true, the defendant’s use of force was not justified: 1. The defendant did not have a reasonable belief that it was necessary to use force to prevent an injury or loss. 2. The defendant used unreasonable force under the circum- stances. 3. The defendant was engaged in the illegal activity of Assault as defined in instruction 48 in the place where she used force, she made no effort to retreat, and retreat was a reasonable alternative to using force. If the State has proved any of these beyond a reasonable doubt, the defendant’s use of force was not justified.

(Emphasis added.) Johnson argues that element three in Instruction 55 was er-

roneous because it allowed the jury to find that the firing of the gun was itself

the “illegal activity of Assault.”

Instruction 58 provided:

If you find that the defendant knew, or had reason to believe, Jada Young-Mills was unlawfully entering defendant’s occupied ve- hicle by force at the time she used deadly force, you must presume the defendant reasonably believed that deadly force was necessary to avoid injury or risk to her life or safety.

Yet, if you find the defendant was engaged in the crime of As- sault as defined in instruction 48 was also true at the time the de- fendant used deadly force, you need not presume that the defendant reasonably believed deadly force was necessary to avoid injury or risk to her life or safety.

(Emphasis added.) Johnson argues that the State presented no evidence to show

that at the time she used deadly force, she was engaging in the “crime of Assault.”

Instruction 48, which is referenced in both challenged instructions, defined as-

sault as “an act which was intended to cause pain or injury, which was intended

to result in physical contact which was insulting or offensive, or which was in-

tended to place Jada Young-Mills in fear of an immediate physical contact which

would have been painful, injurious, insulting or offensive to her.”

The justification defense is built on the notion that one is justified, and thus shouldn’t be held criminally liable for, using reasonable force to protect 8

against an imminent threat or harm. State v. Ellison, 985 N.W.2d 473, 477 (Iowa

2023). Iowa Code § 704.3 provides that “[a] person is justified in the use of rea-

sonable force when the person reasonably believes that such force is necessary

to defend oneself or another from any actual or imminent use of unlawful force.”

“Reasonable force” is defined as “that force and no more which a reasonable

person, in like circumstances, would judge to be necessary to prevent an injury

or loss.” Id. § 704.1(1). Deadly force is authorized only “if it is reasonable to be-

lieve that such force is necessary to avoid injury or risk to one’s life or safety or

the life or safety of another, or it is reasonable to believe that such force is nec-

essary to resist a like force or threat.” Id.

The use of force is generally not justified when the person knows that she

can avoid it safely by retreating or taking an alternate course. See, e.g., State v.

Lorenzo Baltazar, 935 N.W.2d 862, 870 (Iowa 2019). But in 2017, the legislature

added an exception to the duty-to-retreat provision stating that “[a] person who

is not engaged in illegal activity has no duty to retreat from any place where the

person is lawfully present before using force.” 2017 Iowa Acts ch. 69, § 37 (cod-

ified at Iowa Code § 704.1(3) (2018)). The new subsection, providing what’s col-

loquially referred to as the “right to stand your ground,” modified the usual re- quirement that a person facing an imminent threat must retreat if possible before

using force. The statute makes clear that people need not retreat from a place

where they are lawfully present and are not engaged in illegal activity before

using force. Id.; State v. Williams, 929 N.W.2d 621, 637 (Iowa 2019). In other

words, if a person is engaging in illegal activity or is unlawfully present, the duty

to retreat remains. Lorenzo Baltazar, 935 N.W.2d at 870.

Instruction 55 applies language from Iowa Code § 704.1 to outline when

the justification exception is unavailable. The instruction is nearly identical to 9

the instruction given in State v. Ellison, where we found no error in the instruc-

tion and affirmed the defendant’s conviction. See 985 N.W.2d at 478–79. The

only difference is that the instruction in Ellison did not name the illegal activity

that the state claimed negated the stand-your-ground defense. Id. at 481. We

suggested in Ellison that “the instructions could have been more clearly stated

by not including the term ‘illegal activity’ at all,” with the court instead simply

“offer[ing] the elements of the State’s proposed illegal activity [and] tying that

finding directly to the viability of the stand-your-ground exception.” Id.

Although the district court did not have our guidance in Ellison (which

wasn’t decided until over a year later) when drafting the jury instructions in this

case, the district court nevertheless astutely saw for itself the benefit of specify-

ing the underlying “illegal activity” in the stand-your-ground instruction. In-

struction 55 specifies “assault” as the potential illegal activity. As a result, if the

jury found Johnson was engaging in a separate assault at the time she used

deadly force, the exception to her duty to retreat would not apply and Johnson’s

stand-your-ground defense would fail. See id. at 479.

Turning to Instruction 58, the first paragraph restates Iowa Code

§ 704.2A(1)(a)(1), which provides that “a person is presumed to reasonably be- lieve that deadly force is necessary” if the person against whom force is used was

attempting to unlawfully enter the defendant’s occupied vehicle by force. The

second paragraph restates § 704.2A(2)(a), which states that the reasonable-use-

of-deadly-force presumption is unavailable if the defendant was “engaged in a

criminal offense.” In this instruction as well, the district court specified “assault”

as the potential criminal offense that would negate the presumption.

A jury instruction can be erroneous if it’s “misleading and confusing,” even

if it’s “derived from an accurate statement of the law.” McElroy v. State, 637 N.W.2d 488, 500 (Iowa 2001). “[A]n instruction is misleading or confusing if it is 10

‘very possible’ the jury could reasonably have interpreted the instruction incor-

rectly.” Rivera v. Woodward Res. Ctr., 865 N.W.2d 887, 902 (Iowa 2015) (quoting

McElroy, 637 N.W.2d at 500). “On the other hand, if a review of the instructions

‘leads to the inevitable conclusion that the jury could not have misapprehended

the issue,’ then the challenge is without merit.” Id. (quoting Moser v. Stallings,

387 N.W.2d 599, 605 (Iowa 1986)). Put another way, the jury “instructions must

convey the applicable law in such a way that the jury has a clear understanding

of the issues.” Davis, 951 N.W.2d at 17 (quoting Thompson, 564 N.W.2d at 846).

Johnson asserts that it was highly probable that the instructions’ use of

“assault” confused jurors when evaluating her stand-your-ground defense and

the deadly force presumption. We review challenges to jury instructions for cor-

rection of errors at law. State v. Mathis, 971 N.W.2d 514, 519 (Iowa 2022). We

agree that the references to “assault” in Instructions 55 and 58, without more,

created a strong possibility that the jury reasonably could have interpreted the

instructions incorrectly.

Based on the facts developed at trial, there are three acts by Johnson that

jurors could have reasonably found met the definition of assault. First, the jury

could have found that Johnson was still engaged in an assault against the other women at the time of the shooting. In other words, once the fight started, it pro-

ceeded as one continuous assault that didn’t end until Mills was shot. The State,

for its part, argues for this interpretation on appeal, although it didn’t argue it

at trial.

Alternatively, depending on which witnesses’ testimony the jury believed,

the jury could have found that Johnson committed a separate assault when she

brandished the gun and said to Mills, “Where your gun at now, bitch?” Merely

brandishing the gun could satisfy the definition of assault under Instruction 48 11

as an act intended to place Mills “in fear of an immediate physical contact which

would have been painful [or] injurious.”

Finally, the jury could have found that the assault was the shooting itself.

Johnson’s firing of the gun indisputably falls within Instruction 48’s definition

of assault. The jury ultimately convicted Johnson of assault causing serious in-

jury, and the district court held at sentencing that this assault resulted in Mills’s

death, which led to the district court imposing the $150,000 restitution order

against Johnson.

But the shooting itself may not constitute the “illegal activity” disqualifying

Johnson from the stand-your-ground defense or the reasonable-use-of-deadly-

force presumption. To do so would eviscerate both the defense and the presump-

tion. Every time a defendant invoked the defense or presumption, the State could

simply point to the use of deadly force and argue that the defendant was engaged

in an assault (an “illegal activity”) in the place where the defendant used force.

No one who uses deadly force to defend themselves would ever be successful in

a stand-your-ground defense or receive the benefit of the deadly force presump-

tion, effectively nullifying the statute.

But this is a plausible interpretation of the instructions given at Johnson’s trial. Indeed, that no assault was ongoing when Johnson fired the gun is exactly

how the State urged the jury to consider the events throughout the case. During

opening statements, the State told the jury that when Johnson got back in her

vehicle and closed the door, the fight—and thus any ongoing assault—was over:

The evidence is also going to show that at some point the fight was over. The evidence is going to show that there was no more physical altercation going on and that the defendant, Lasondra Johnson, was back in her vehicle. And as far as everyone else was concerned, it was done.

The evidence is going to show that it was not done for Lason- dra Johnson. And at that time she made the choice to reach into her 12

glove box, pull out her gun, aim it at Jada Mills, and pull the trigger killing her.

The State elicited testimony from its witnesses consistent with this theme. Shara

testified, for instance, that “the fight was over” and that Johnson “got back in

her vehicle” immediately before she fired the gun. Sherry similarly testified, “I

thought the fight was over. . . . So then I turned and I headed back to the house.”

The State returned to this theme in its closing argument:

And the bottom line of it is, ladies and gentlemen, no matter who was the primary aggressor in the fight, by the time the gun went off, the fight was over. They had duked it out already and everybody was walking away. Mama Sherry had already moved back up into the house, [Boldon] had turned to go to her car. Everybody assumed this fight was over. [Mills] was backing up towards the sidewalk. It was done.

The State’s argument to the jury makes it even more likely that the jury

considered the shooting itself as an assault that defeated Johnson’s justification

defense. No instruction specified that Johnson must have been committing an

assault separate and distinct from the use of deadly force for which she claimed

justification. The State notably never made the argument at trial that it now

makes on appeal that Johnson’s brandishing of the handgun constituted an as-

sault under Instruction 55 or 58. In this case, the jury had multiple possibilities of “assault” from which to

choose in applying Instructions 55 and 58, “but one was legally erroneous.” State

v. Ross, 986 N.W.2d 581, 587 (Iowa 2023). Because the jury instructions failed

to convey the law in such a way that the jury had a clear understanding of John-

son’s justification defense, we must reverse the conviction.

III.

We thus reverse Johnson’s conviction, vacate the sentence, and remand

for a new trial. Because we remand the case for a new trial, we do not address 13

the other issues Johnson raises on appeal challenging her sentence.

DECISION OF COURT OF APPEALS VACATED; DISTRICT COURT JUDGMENT REVERSED AND REMANDED.