State of Iowa v. Mandell Clark

• Court: Court of Appeals of Iowa
• Decided: July 3, 2024
• Docket: 22-1653
• Status: Published

Opinion

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 22-1653 Filed July 3, 2024

STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff-Appellee,

vs.

MANDELL CLARK, Defendant-Appellant. ________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Webster County, Kurt J. Stoebe,

Judge.

A defendant seeks to vacate his guilty plea, alleging the district court

erroneously denied his post-plea motion to adjudicate law points. APPEAL

DISMISSED.

Jennifer Bennett Finn of Pelzer Law Firm, LLC, Estherville, for appellant.

Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Nicholas E. Siefert, Assistant Attorney

General, for appellee.

Considered by Tabor, P.J., Schumacher, J., and Vogel, S.J.* Buller, J.,

takes no part.

*Senior judge assigned by order pursuant to Iowa Code section 602.9206

(2024). 2

VOGEL, Senior Judge.

Mandell Clark seeks to directly appeal from his guilty plea to possession of

marijuana with intent to deliver, a class “D” felony. Forty days after pleading guilty

and shortly before his sentencing, Clark filed a “motion for adjudication of law

points,” asking the district court to opine on Clark’s available remedies following

law enforcement’s alleged failure to provide him with a written inventory of the

seized contraband. The motion-to-adjudicate was explicitly not a motion in arrest

of judgment. Rather, it asked for an opinion on available remedies, which in turn

would inform whether Clark would be able to move in arrest of judgment and

thereby withdraw his guilty plea. The district court denied the motion and Clark

never moved in arrest of judgment. Given that failure, he lacks good cause to

appeal from his guilty plea and we thus dismiss this appeal for want of jurisdiction.

I. Factual Background and Proceedings.

In March 2022, the State charged Clark with three counts: (1) possession

with intent to deliver less than fifty kilograms of marijuana, in violation of Iowa Code

section 124.401(1)(d) (2022); (2) possession of a controlled substance,

methamphetamine, first offense, in violation of Iowa Code section 124.401(5); and

(3) interference with official acts, resulting in bodily injury, in violation of Iowa Code

section 719.1(1)(a) and (c). Two months later, Clark pleaded guilty to Count I and

the State agreed to dismiss the other two counts.

As part of his written plea, Clark admitted to knowingly possessing

marijuana with an intent to deliver the same. He also acknowledged that if he

“wish[ed] to challenge this Plea of Guilty, [he] must do so by filing a motion in arrest

of judgment at least five (5) days prior to the Court imposing sentence, but no more 3

than 45 days from today’s date.”1 A week later, the district court accepted Clark’s

plea and scheduled a sentencing hearing.

Forty days after his guilty plea, and five days before his sentencing hearing,

Clark filed a “motion for adjudication of law points.” According to Clark, law

enforcement seized a bag of methamphetamine, bags of marijuana, a scale, and

rolling papers during his arrest. But Clark alleges he was never given a written

inventory of that seized contraband, contrary to Iowa Code section 809.2.2 Clark’s

motion “ask[ed] the Court to adjudicate the law point(s) regarding the remedy or

remedies available to Defendant for the officer’s clear violation of a mandatory

legal duty imposed by statute.” Depending on which remedies the court identified,

Clark argued he “should be given the opportunity to file a Motion in Arrest of

Judgment, Motion to Dismiss, Motion to Suppress or otherwise avail himself of

available legal remedies for the violation of his statutory right.” Clark also asked

the court to “adjudicate” whether the lack of a written inventory rendered the

contraband “inadmissible and subject to suppression.” Then, “[o]nce the Court so

1 After this case was submitted, our supreme court decided State v. Hightower, __

N.W.3d __, 2024 WL 3075781 (Iowa June 21, 2024). There, the court found a defendant was not adequately advised that she needed to file a motion in arrest of judgment while awaiting sentencing. Id. at *3–5. Clark makes no similar argument here, so we do not consider whether his failure to file a motion in arrest of judgment could be excused under Hightower. 2 That section states,

The officer taking possession of seized property shall make a written inventory of the property and deliver a copy of the inventory to the person from whom it was seized. The inventory shall include the name of the person taking custody of the seized property, the date and time of the seizure, and the law enforcement agency seizing the property. Iowa Code § 809.2. 4

adjudicates,” Clark argued he “should be granted the opportunity to withdraw his

guilty plea and have the case dismissed.” (Emphasis added.)

The district court denied the motion, noting Clark knew that law enforcement

seized his contraband before entering a guilty plea. The court reasoned if Clark

“wished to argue that certain evidence should have been suppressed and,

therefore, his guilty plea violated constitutional safeguards—a motion in arrest of

judgment was the correct procedural attack.” See generally Iowa R. Crim.

P. 2.24(3). The court further concluded that Clark had been advised that he must

move in arrest of judgment if he wished to challenge his plea, and his alternative

motion to adjudicate law points was “an improper attempt to circumvent this

important statutory requirement.”

Clark was later sentenced to five years in prison. Clark filed a notice of

appeal, and now argues on direct appeal that his plea should be vacated, his

judgment of conviction should be reversed, and he should be allowed to plead

again.

II. Jurisdiction.

The State asserts we lack jurisdiction over this appeal, and we agree. A

criminal defendant who pleads guilty generally has no right to directly appeal his

or her conviction. Iowa Code § 814.6(1)(a)(3). This rule has two exceptions—

defendants who plead guilty to class “A” felonies and those who establish “good

cause.” Id. When seeking to vacate a guilty plea, a necessary condition to

establishing good cause is timely moving in arrest of judgment. See State v.

Hanes, 981 N.W.2d 454, 460–62 (Iowa 2022); State v. Damme, 944 N.W.2d 98,

105–08 (Iowa 2020). If a defendant fails “to file a motion in arrest of judgment, he 5

cannot establish good cause to pursue [a] direct appeal from his guilty plea as a

matter of right.” Hanes, 981 N.W.2d at 462; see also State v. Treptow, 960 N.W.2d

98, 109 (Iowa 2021); Iowa R. Crim. P. 2.24(3)(a)(2).

Clark ignores this precedent and instead summarily asserts he has a

“legally sufficient reason” to pursue a direct appeal because “the district court did

not properly consider the motion for adjudication of law points.” But Clark’s good-

cause argument collapses the distinction between merits and jurisdiction. To

secure appellate jurisdiction over his guilty plea, he must have moved in arrest of

judgment—allowing the district court the opportunity to afford the relief he now

seeks on appeal. What’s more, Clark does not urge us to treat his motion for

adjudication of law points as functionally moving in arrest of judgment. See State

v. Allen, 304 N.W.2d 203, 206 (Iowa 1981) (explaining courts “look to the

substance of a motion and not its label” and “treat[ing] the motion for acquittal as

a motion to dismiss”). Although the State recognizes this potential argument—and

compellingly argues the distinct purposes of each motion show Clark’s chosen

vehicle was no mere misnomer—Clark does not make this argument, so we do not

address it. See State v. Struve, 956 N.W.2d 90, 99 n.2 (Iowa 2021) (emphasizing

courts “do not, or should not, sally forth each day looking for wrongs to right. They

wait for cases to come to them, and when cases arise, courts normally decide only

questions presented by the parties” (cleaned up)).

Because Clark was advised he must move in arrest of judgment to

challenge his guilty plea and he failed to do so, see Treptow, 960 N.W.2d at 109,

we lack jurisdiction over this appeal, State v. Rutherford, 997 N.W.2d 142, 144

(Iowa 2023). 6

III. Conclusion.

Clark failed to show good cause to pursue a direct appeal from his guilty

plea, and we therefore dismiss this appeal for want of jurisdiction.

APPEAL DISMISSED.