State of Iowa v. Joseph Michael Evenson ( 2015 )

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 14-0168
Filed April 22, 2015
STATE OF IOWA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
vs.
JOSEPH MICHAEL EVENSON,
Defendant-Appellant.
________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Cerro Gordo County, Karen R.
Salic, District Associate Judge.
A defendant challenges his conviction for eluding, contending the district
court should have instructed on specific intent. AFFIRMED.
Mark C. Smith, State Appellate Defender, and Shellie L. Knipfer, Assistant
Attorney General, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Heather Ann Mapes, Assistant
Attorney General, Carlyle D. Dalen, County Attorney, and Rachel Ginbey,
Assistant County Attorney, for appellee.
Considered by Vaitheswaran, P.J., and Tabor and Mullins, JJ.
2
TABOR, J.
The question in this appeal is whether the crime of eluding, in violation of
Iowa Code section 321.279(1) (2013), is a general or specific intent crime.
Joseph Evenson argues he is entitled to a new trial because the district court
classified eluding as a general intent crime and instructed the jury accordingly.
We are persuaded the district court committed no error and affirm the conviction.
Before analyzing the propriety of the jury instructions, we provide a brief
history of Evenson’s prosecution. On September 18, 2013, Evenson was driving
a friend’s car (the friend was a passenger and her young children were riding in
the backseat) when he encountered a police officer. The officer knew of an
outstanding warrant for Evenson’s arrest and followed him. Evenson drove “at a
very fast rate of speed,” and the officer pursued him with his lights and sirens
activated. Evenson eventually jumped from the moving car and left the scene on
foot. Officers found a number of controlled substances abandoned on the
driver’s side floor of the car.
Eluding was one of nine counts originally alleged against Evenson in the
trial information. The other counts included child endangerment, possession of a
prescription drug without a prescription, possession of morphine, possession of
marijuana, possession of methamphetamine, possession of hydrocodone,
possession of alprazolam, and possession of hydromorphone. The State
dismissed the prescription drug count before the jury trial. The trial ran from
January 14 through January 16, 2014.
3
During the conference on jury instructions, defense counsel asked the
court to define specific intent for the jury. Counsel argued that the word “willfully”
in the eluding statute indicated it was a specific intent crime. The prosecutor
argued eluding was a general intent crime. The district court declined to give the
specific intent instruction, explaining the concept of willfulness was “entirely
different” from the concept of specific intent and concluding “all of the crimes
alleged here are general intent crimes.”
The jury returned not-guilty verdicts on all counts with the exception
eluding. The court sentenced Evenson to one year in jail on the eluding
conviction and imposed a fine of $315.
On appeal, Evenson alleges the district court erred in failing to give the
jury an instruction on specific intent to define the term “willfully” in the eluding
instruction. We review his allegation for the correction of legal error. State v.
Marin, 788 N.W.2d 833, 836 (Iowa 2010).
The court provided the following marshalling instruction:
The State must prove both of the following elements of Eluding:
1. On or about the 18th day of September, 2013, the
defendant was driving a motor vehicle.
2. The defendant willfully failed to bring the motor vehicle to
a stop or otherwise eluded a marked official law enforcement
vehicle driven by a uniformed peace officer after being given a
visual and audible signal to stop.
See Iowa Code § 321.279(1).
The court instructed the jury on general intent, as follows:
To commit a crime, a person must intend to do an act which is
against the law. While it is not necessary that a person knows the
act is against the law, it is necessary that the person was aware he
was doing the act and he did it voluntarily, not by mistake or
4
accident. You may, but are not required to conclude a person
intends the natural results of his acts.
Defense counsel requested an instruction on specific intent. Iowa
Criminal Jury Instruction No. 200.2 explains the specific-intent concept as
follows:
“Specific intent” means not only being aware of doing an act
and doing it voluntarily, but in addition, doing it with a specific
purpose in mind.
Because determining the defendant’s specific intent requires
you to decide what [he] [she] was thinking when an act was done, it
is seldom capable of direct proof. Therefore, you should consider
the facts and circumstances surrounding the act to determine the
defendant’s specific intent. You may, but are not required to,
conclude a person intends the natural results of [his] [her] acts.
According to Evenson’s appellate argument, “he did not willfully fail to stop
after both the sirens and lights were activated because his failure to stop from the
time of the signals was not purposeful.” Evenson reviews varying definitions of
willfully from Iowa case law and gleans that it has been interpreted to mean
deliberate, purposeful, voluntary, or not accidental. See generally State v.
Azneer, 526 N.W.2d 298, 299 (Iowa 1995). He then concludes “willfully” in the
context of the eluding statute means it is a specific intent crime.
Evenson’s conclusion that eluding requires proof of specific intent does
not flow logically from the case law definitions of willfulness. Whether a crime
requires proof of general or specific intent is an inquiry independent of the mens
rea required by a criminal statute. See State v. Keeton, 710 N.W.2d 531, 533
(Iowa 2006) (citing In re M.S., 896 P.2d 1365, 1383–84 (Cal. 1995) (Mosk, J.,
5
concurring) (“Indeed, ‘specific intent’ and ‘general intent’ do not define criminal
mental states.”)).1
To decide if a crime requires general or specific intent, we read the
language of the statute “in the light of its manifest purpose and design.” In re
D.S., 856 N.W.2d 348, 352 (Iowa 2014) (quoting State v. Neuzil, 589 N.W.2d
708, 711 (Iowa 1999)). To assist in distinguishing between crimes requiring
general and specific intent, our supreme court sketched out the following guide:
When the definition of a crime consists of only the description of a
particular act, without reference to intent to do a further act or
achieve a further consequence, we ask whether the defendant
intended to do the prescribed act. This intention is deemed to be a
general criminal intent. When the definition refers to defendant’s
intent to do some further act or achieve some additional
consequence, the crime is deemed to be one of specific intent.
Eggman v. Scurr, 311 N.W.2d 77, 79 (Iowa 1981) (quoting P. Johnson, Criminal
Law, 329 (1975)); see also State v. Buchanan, 549 N.W.2d 291, 294 (Iowa 1996)
(holding statute criminalizing interference with official acts did not require intent to
do further act or achieve some additional consequence). Specific-intent crimes
designate “a special mental element which is required above and beyond any
mental state required with respect to the actus reus of the crime.” Neuzil, 589
N.W.2d at 711 (quoting Buchanan, 549 N.W.2d at 294, and declining to read a
specific intent element into the stalking statute).
1
Keeton also cited the Model Penal Code § 2.02, at 230 & n.3 (1985) for the proposition
that the four categories of culpability (purposely, knowingly, recklessly, and negligently)
stood in place of the specific-intent/general-intent dichotomy, “which has been such an
abiding source of confusion and ambiguity in the penal law.” Keeton, 710 N.W.2d at
533.
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When we read the language of section 321.279(1) in light of its manifest
purpose to protect the motoring public, we find no specific intent element. The
State must prove the defendant willfully failed to stop his or her car or otherwise
eluded or attempted to elude a marked squad car driven by a uniformed officer
after being signaled to stop with lights and sirens. Iowa Code § 321.279(1). The
critical act is continuing to drive away or taking evasive action after receiving
obvious direction to stop from law enforcement.2 The statute does not require
proof the defendant intended to do some further act or to achieve some
additional consequence. Cf. State v. Francois, 577 N.W.2d 417, 421 (Iowa 1998)
(holding escape or attempt to escape under section 719.4 was a general intent
crime despite legislature’s use of term intentionally). This conclusion is
consistent with our prior unpublished cases discussing the intent element of
eluding. See State v. Pierce, No. 03-0485, 2004 WL 434048, at *1 (Iowa Ct.
App. Mar. 10, 2004) (holding attempting to elude was a general intent crime);
See also State v. Tubbs, No. 10-0758, 2011 WL 768756, at * 3 (Iowa Ct. App.
Mar. 7, 2011) (finding counsel was not ineffective for declining to object to
general intent instruction in eluding case).
AFFIRMED.
2
Evenson argues he pulled over ten to fifteen seconds after being signaled which was a
“reasonable passage of time” and did not necessarily “reflect a willful failure to stop.”
Whether Evenson voluntarily complied after police activated their lights and sirens was a
question for the jury and did not hinge on the absence of a specific-intent instruction.