State of Iowa v. Patrill D. Ellis ( 2016 )

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 15-1001
Filed March 23, 2016
STATE OF IOWA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
vs.
PATRILL D. ELLIS,
Defendant-Appellant.
________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Bremer County, Peter B. Newell,
District Associate Judge.
A defendant appeals his sentence following his guilty plea to two counts of
forgery and two counts of theft in the second degree. AFFIRMED.
Mark C. Smith, State Appellate Defender, and Patricia Reynolds, Assistant
Appellate Defender, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Louis S. Sloven, Assistant
Attorney General, for appellee.
Considered by Danilson, C.J., and Vogel and Potterfield, JJ.
2
VOGEL, Judge.
Patrill Ellis appeals the sentence imposed by the court following his pleas
of guilty to two counts of forgery and two counts of theft in the second degree, all
class “D” felonies. See Iowa Code §§ 714.2(2), 715A.2 (2013). The court
imposed its sentence of imprisonment not to exceed five years on each count
with all counts to run concurrently. Ellis claims the court abused its discretion in
not suspending the sentence and placing him on probation. He believes a prison
sentence was not best suited for his rehabilitation or best for the protection of
society. He points to his full-time employment, his child support obligations, and
his remorse for his actions as reasons probation should have been ordered. He
also claims the court failed to mention the factors that favored probation when it
pronounced sentence.
In announcing the sentence, the court stated:
Mr. Ellis, again, the State and the Department of
Correctional Services are recommending that you receive prison
terms in these matters, and I think there are a couple of reasons for
that. It does appear that you have been on probation on two prior
occasions. On each of those occasions, your probation was
revoked. It appears that your last probation was revoked in April of
2014, and then you committed these offenses in January of 2015.
Again, there are four felony offenses pending against you.
The amount of money that is involved is substantial. It’s over
$4000 in restitution.
I think in light of that, I think that the State’s recommendation
is appropriate. Again, the person preparing the presentence
investigation identifies a high risk to reoffend. Again, I think that—I
think that the lenient part of this is that the State is asking these all
run concurrently, and I’m going to follow that.
So, I will impose a five-year prison term on each of the four
offenses, but I will run them concurrently, which means at the same
time; not consecutively.
3
We discern no abuse of discretion in the district court’s sentencing
decision. See State v. Formaro, 638 N.W.2d 720, 724 (Iowa 2002) (“We will not
reverse the decision of the district court absent an abuse of discretion or some
defect in the sentencing procedure.”). “A sentencing court has a duty to consider
all the circumstances of a particular case. We do not believe however, it is
required to specifically acknowledge each claim of mitigation urged by a
defendant.” State v. Boltz, 542 N.W.2d 9, 11 (Iowa Ct. App. 1995). Therefore,
we affirm the sentence imposed by the district court.
AFFIRMED.