State of Iowa v. Sammi Jo Thurman

• Court: Court of Appeals of Iowa
• Decided: October 29, 2025
• Docket: 24-1782
• Status: Published

Opinion

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 24-1782 Filed October 29, 2025

STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff-Appellee,

vs.

SAMMI JO THURMAN, Defendant-Appellant. ________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, Kristen Formanek,

Judge.

A defendant appeals the revocation of her deferred judgment and sentence

for child endangerment. CONVICTION AFFIRMED; SENTENCE VACATED IN

PART AND REMANDED.

Martha J. Lucey, State Appellate Defender, and Melinda J. Nye, Assistant

Appellate Defender, for appellant.

Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Genevieve Reinkoester, Assistant

Attorney General, for appellee.

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

Langholz, JJ. 2

BADDING, Judge.

In March 2024, the district court granted Sammi Thurman a deferred

judgment after she pled guilty to child endangerment, an aggravated

misdemeanor, under Iowa Code section 726.6(8) (2023). The court placed

Thurman on probation for one year, ordered her to “comply with all requirements”

of the juvenile court in her related child-in-need-of-assistance case, and imposed

a suspended civil penalty. Less than six months later, the court revoked

Thurman’s deferred judgment, convicted her of the child-endangerment charge,

and sentenced her to 364 days in jail. In its written judgment entry, the court

converted the suspended civil penalty to the minimum fine. Thurman appeals.1

Thurman’s probation officer filed his first report of violations just three

months after Thurman was placed on probation. He alleged that Thurman had

failed to complete two drug screens requested by the Iowa Department of Human

Services. At the evidentiary hearing on the report, Thurman testified that the sweat

patch tests requested by the department were against her religion. The district

court found Thurman had violated her probation, held her in contempt, and

sentenced her to twenty-one days in jail. The court’s order specified in bold capital

letters:

Defendant is re-informed that she shall comply with all requirements of probation and all drug screens in whatever form requested by [the department], juvenile court, or probation. Defendant is advised that any violation or refusal to comply or statements to her probation officer that she will not comply is a

1 Although Thurman pled guilty to her underlying charge, we find good cause to

entertain her appeal. See Iowa Code § 814.6(1)(a)(3); State v. Thompson, 951 N.W.2d 1, 5 (Iowa 2020) (finding good cause to appeal following guilty plea where defendant was challenging “the order revoking her deferred judgment and entering a judgment of conviction and sentence”). 3

violation of her probation and the court will immediately issue a warrant at her probation officer’s request.

Despite this clear warning, a second report of violations was filed in

October. The probation officer alleged that Thurman missed another two drug

screens for the department and an appointment with him. On the day of the

probation revocation hearing, Thurman signed a written stipulation “agree[ing] to

the violations as reported,” with the parties free to argue disposition. The district

court confirmed the stipulation with Thurman at the hearing:

THE COURT: Prior to going on the record, the defendant’s counsel handed the Court a written stipulation to the probation violation indicating that Ms. Thurman wished to stipulate to violating her probation, as stated in the filed report of violations dated October 4th, 2024. Ms. Thurman, is that correct? THE DEFENDANT: Yeah.

But from there, Thurman began to waffle. When asked whether she violated

her probation as alleged in the report, Thurman answered, “No.” She admitted

that while she “did not drop” for the department, she did submit to a urinalysis for

her substance use treatment provider. In response to that equivocation, the court

went through the violations “one by one” with Thurman:

THE COURT: . . . The first alleged violation is dated 9/25/2024 indicating you did not report to [the department] for your scheduled drug screening on 9/25/2024. Do you agree with that? THURMAN: No. I did not know about that one. No, I don’t. DEFENSE COUNSEL: The Judge is asking, yes or no, did you show up for it. THURMAN: I didn’t know about it so, no. THE COURT: Okay. But would you agree you did not report? THURMAN: I didn’t know, yeah. THE COURT: Okay. So you didn’t report on 9/25/2024. On 9/30/24 it’s alleged . . . you failed to report for a scheduled appointment and did not advi[s]e [the probation officer] that you would be absent or unable to attend? Do you agree with that? 4

THURMAN: I did not have a—I’m sorry. I lost my phone. I didn’t have my phone. THE COURT: Okay. But you failed to report for that appointment; is that true? THURMAN: I didn’t go, yeah, that day. THE COURT: Do we need to have an evidentiary hearing? DEFENSE COUNSEL: Okay. Your Honor, she does not wish to have an evidentiary hearing. THE COURT: Okay. Ms. Thurman, if that is the case, you either admit to the agreement or you don’t. And then the State would put [the probation officer] on the stand to try to prove that you did violate probation. Do you admit that you violated your probation on September 30th failing to report for an appointment? THURMAN: Yeah. THE COURT: Okay. And on October 1st that you did not report to [the department] for a scheduled drug screening. THURMAN: I didn’t know, but, yeah. THE COURT: You didn’t show up for that. Okay. So I’ll accept your stipulations that you violated probation. We’ll proceed to disposition.

On the question of disposition, defense counsel told the court that Thurman

“agrees with her deferred judgment being revoked.” She asked to be given “credit

for time served and unsuccessfully discharged from probation.” The State also

asked the court to revoke Thurman’s deferred judgment but argued that she should

be sentenced to prison because “[y]ou don’t get to not comply with probation and

then just come to court and ask that you be unsuccessfully discharged and move

on.” Finally, the State recommended that the court impose but suspend the

mandatory minimum fine. The court agreed that Thurman’s deferred judgment

should be revoked but sentenced her to 364 days in jail rather than imposing a

prison sentence. The court failed to address the fine that should be assessed at

the probation revocation hearing. But its written order converted Thurman’s

previously imposed civil penalty to a fine, with “credit for any civil penalty the

Defendant has previously paid in this matter.” 5

Thurman first claims the district court abused its discretion and violated her

due process rights because her stipulation did not establish that she willfully

violated the terms of her probation. We agree with the State that Thurman waived

this claim. She filed a written stipulation to the probation violations, which she

confirmed at the hearing. Thurman also confirmed that she did not want an

evidentiary record on the violations and that her deferred judgment should be

revoked. Our supreme court has long held that a party cannot “predicate error

upon the court’s doing the very thing [the party] requested the court to do.” State

v. Beckwith, 53 N.W.2d 867, 845 (Iowa 1952); see also State v. Sage, 162 N.W.2d

502, 504 (Iowa 1968) (“A party to a criminal proceeding cannot assume

inconsistent positions in the trial and appellate courts and, as a general rule, will

not be permitted to allege an error in which he himself acquiesced, or which was

committed or invited by him.” (cleaned up)). We accordingly decline to address

the merits of this claim.

Thurman also claims the district court erred in imposing a fine in its written

order because the court “utterly failed to address the fine” in its oral sentencing

pronouncement. She asks us to vacate the fine and remand “for a new sentencing

hearing in which the court can address that aspect of her sentence.” The State

concedes this issue and asks for the same relief. Because the court failed to

address the fine at the probation revocation proceeding, we conclude that its intent

regarding the fine is unclear. We accordingly vacate the fine imposed in the written

judgment entry and remand for resentencing on that issue only. See State v. 6

Smith, 17 N.W.3d 355, 361 (Iowa 2025) (remanding for resentencing only on the

imposition of a fine).

CONVICTION AFFIRMED; SENTENCE VACATED IN PART AND

REMANDED.