State of Iowa v. Preston Malique Walls

• Court: Court of Appeals of Iowa
• Decided: July 23, 2025
• Docket: 24-0159
• Status: Published

Opinion

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 24-0159 Filed July 23, 2025

STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff-Appellee,

vs.

PRESTON MALIQUE WALLS, Defendant-Appellant. ________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, Lawrence P. McLellan,

Judge.

A defendant appeals the denial of his motion for new trial following his

conviction for assault causing serious injury. AFFIRMED.

Nick Sarcone of Babich Sarcone, P.L.L.C., Des Moines, for appellant.

Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Anagha Dixit, Assistant Attorney

General, for appellee.

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

Sandy, JJ. 2

SCHUMACHER, Presiding Judge.

In September 2023, a jury convicted Preston Walls on three charges. Walls

appeals the denial of his motion for new trial following his conviction for assault

causing serious injury, basing his challenge on the use of an allegedly defective

jury instruction. The State contests error preservation.

Our rule governing jury instructions provides in part:

Before jury arguments, the court shall give to each counsel a copy of its instructions in their final form, noting this fact of record and granting reasonable time for counsel to make objections, which shall be made and ruled on before arguments to the jury. Within such time, all objections to giving or failing to give any instruction must be made in writing or dictated into the record, out of the jury’s presence, specifying the matter objected to and on what grounds. No other grounds or objections shall be asserted thereafter, or considered on appeal. But if the court thereafter revises or adds to the instructions, similar specific objection to the revision or addition may be made in the motion for new trial, and if not so made shall be deemed waived.

Iowa R. Civ. P. 1.924; see also Iowa R. Crim. P. 2.19(4)(g) (“The rules relating to

the instruction of juries in civil cases apply to criminal cases.”).

As rule 1.924 provides, “timely objection to jury instructions in criminal

prosecutions is necessary in order to preserve any error thereon for appellate

review.” State v. Taggart, 430 N.W.2d 423, 425 (Iowa 1988). When the failure to

timely object results in failure to preserve error, raising the jury-instruction objection

for the first time in a post-trial motion will not revive a defendant’s right to assert

the error on appeal. See, e.g., State v. Davis, 951 N.W.2d 8, 16 (Iowa 2020)

(motion for new trial); State v. Henderson, 268 N.W.2d 173, 181 (Iowa 1978)

(same).

Despite the parties and the court discussing the jury instructions, Walls did

not object to the instruction now contested at any point before closing arguments 3

and before the jury began deliberation. The district court provided defense counsel

opportunities to raise objections to the instruction, and defense counsel repeatedly

declined and endorsed the instruction. No revision or addition to the jury

instruction was made after the parties agreed on the final draft and submitted the

instruction to the jury.

Walls raised an objection to the instruction for the first time in his motion for

a new trial.1 This was too late to preserve error. See Davis, 951 N.W.2d at 16.

Because Walls failed to preserve error on the only issue he raises on

appeal, we affirm.

AFFIRMED.

1 This motion was styled as a motion in arrest of judgment but argued as a motion

for new trial, which appellant’s counsel frames as “inartful.”