State of Iowa v. Traci Marie Chamberlain

• Court: Court of Appeals of Iowa
• Decided: October 29, 2025
• Docket: 24-1221
• Status: Published

Opinion

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 24-1221 Filed October 29, 2025

STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff-Appellee,

vs.

TRACI MARIE CHAMBERLAIN, Defendant-Appellant. ________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Buchanan County,

Stephanie C. Rattenborg, Judge.

A defendant seeks discretionary review of the district court’s ruling affirming

two simple misdemeanor convictions for violations of a no-contact order.

AFFIRMED.

Mark C. Meyer, Cedar Rapids, for appellant.

Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Timothy M. Hau, Assistant Attorney

General, for appellee.

Considered without oral argument by Tabor, C.J., and Ahlers and

Langholz, JJ. 2

AHLERS, Judge.

A magistrate found Traci Chamberlain guilty of two simple-misdemeanor

violations of a no-contact order. Chamberlain appealed both convictions to the

district court. See Iowa R. Crim. P. 2.72(4)(f) (requiring the district court to decide

appeals of simple misdemeanors tried by a magistrate). The district court affirmed

both convictions. Chamberlain filed a notice of appeal that included both

convictions. As Chamberlain had no right to appeal from simple misdemeanor

convictions, see Iowa Code § 814.6(2)(d) (2024), the supreme court gave the

parties the opportunity to file jurisdictional statements. Chamberlain then filed an

application for discretionary review, which the supreme court granted before

transferring the appeal to our court.

Chamberlain raised three issues to the district court. But she does not raise

any of those issues on discretionary review. Instead, she raises a completely

different issue. She contends error occurred due to failure to comply with Iowa

Rule of Criminal Procedure 2.72(3), which states:

When an appeal is taken, the magistrate shall promptly forward to the appropriate district court clerk a copy of the magistrate’s minutes of the witnesses’ testimony along with the exhibits. Within 10 days after an appeal is taken, unless extended by order of a district judge or district associate judge, any transcript or electronic recording of the official report shall be filed by the magistrate unless it is already on file.

Chamberlain contends the district court could not have conducted a full and fair

review of the magistrate’s rulings because neither the magistrate’s minutes of

witness testimony nor any transcript or electronic recording of the proceedings

before the magistrate were reviewed by the district court.

There are two related problems with Chamberlain’s challenge. First, 3

Chamberlain fails to establish that the magistrate’s minutes, a transcript, or an

electronic recording of the proceedings before the magistrate were not reviewed

by the district court. Instead, she asks us to assume such materials were not

reviewed. But we do not presume error. State v. Cook, 330 N.W.2d 306, 313

(Iowa 1983). As Chamberlain has made no showing that the district court did not

review the applicable materials, we reject her challenge.

Second, Chamberlain failed to preserve error on this issue, because she

never called this alleged error to the district court’s attention. A party cannot seek

relief from an appellate court based on an alleged error by the district court without

first bringing the error to the district court’s attention. See Meier v. Senecaut, 641

N.W.2d 532, 537 (Iowa 2002) (“It is a fundamental doctrine of appellate review that

issues must ordinarily be both raised and decided by the district court before we

will decide them on appeal.”). If Chamberlain had notified the district court that

she was claiming the district court did not have the applicable materials available

to it, the district court would have had the opportunity to point out that it had the

materials or could have obtained the materials if it did not already have them.

Chamberlain’s failure to raise this issue deprived the district court of the

opportunity to address or fix the problem. As such, Chamberlain failed to preserve

error on the issue she raises on discretionary review, so we affirm.1

1 We reject Chamberlain’s claim that she preserved error by raising the issue in

her application for discretionary review. The filing used to invoke appellate court jurisdiction does not preserve error. See Iowa R. App. P. 6.903(2)(a)(8)(1) (“Filing a notice of appeal does not preserve an issue for appeal . . . .”); see also State v. Gogg, 561 N.W.2d 360, 368 (Iowa 1997) (applying same error-preservation standards on discretionary review as on appeal).