State of Iowa v. Joshua James Royer ( 2016 )

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 15-0895
Filed November 9, 2016
STATE OF IOWA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
vs.
JOSHUA JAMES ROYER,
Defendant-Appellant.
________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Des Moines County, Mary Ann
Brown, Judge.
A defendant appeals his conviction for first-degree murder, challenging the
court’s denial of his motion to strike two jurors for cause and the court’s
admission of prior-bad-acts evidence. AFFIRMED.
Mark C. Smith, State Appellate Defender, and Robert P. Ranschau,
Assistant Appellate Defender, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Linda J. Hines, Assistant Attorney
General, for appellee.
Considered by Vogel, P.J., Doyle, J., and Scott, S.J.*
*Senior judge assigned by order pursuant to Iowa Code section 602.9206 (2015).
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SCOTT, Senior Judge.
Joshua Royer appeals his conviction for first-degree murder, in violation of
Iowa Code sections 707.1 and 707.2 (2013). He asserts the court erred in
denying his motion to strike for cause two jurors who were aware of his criminal
history, forcing him to use peremptory strikes to remove the jurors in question.
He also claims the court erred in allowing into evidence testimony and video
concerning his prior interaction with police. For the reasons stated herein, we
affirm Royer’s conviction.
I. Jury Selection.
During jury selection, several members of the venire admitted knowledge
of Royer and his criminal record from news articles they had read about the
crime. Royer’s counsel challenged those individuals for cause, asserting their
knowledge of his record, and the inherent prejudice that knowledge brings,
prevented them from being impartial. The court granted all but two of those
challenges. Royer then used his peremptory challenges to strike these two
remaining individuals from the jury. He appeals contending the court abused its
discretion in not striking for cause these two potential jurors. He also asserts this
court should find he was presumptively prejudiced by the need to use two of his
peremptory challenges to remove these jurors. Such a conclusion would be in
contravention to the supreme court’s holding in State v. Neuendorf, 509 N.W.2d
743, 747 (Iowa 1993) (“We hold that partiality of a juror may not be made the
basis for reversal in instances in which that juror has been removed through
exercise of a peremptory challenge. . . . Prejudice will no longer be presumed
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from the fact that the defendant has been forced to waste a peremptory
challenge.”).
We review a court’s failure to grant a party’s motion to strike a juror for
cause for an abuse of discretion. State v. Tillman, 514 N.W.2d 105, 107 (Iowa
1994). A juror can be challenged for cause based on the juror “[h]aving formed
or expressed such an opinion as to the guilt or innocence of the defendant as
would prevent the juror from rendering a true verdict upon the evidence
submitted on the trial.” Iowa R. Crim. P. 2.18(5)(k). The district court has broad
discretion in applying this test to a party’s challenge for cause. State v. Mitchell,
573 N.W.2d 239, 240 (Iowa 1997). While prejudice in failing to grant a challenge
for cause was previously presumed, our supreme court in Neuendorf determined
there must be “some factual showing that this circumstance resulted in a juror
being seated who was not impartial.” 509 N.W.2d at 746. Without proof that the
jury that rendered the verdict was not impartial, the court found “it is too
speculative to justify overturning the verdict of the jury.” Id. Thus, the test that
must be applied requires the defendant to show “(1) an error in the court’s ruling
on the challenge for cause; and (2) either (a) the challenged juror served on the
jury, or (b) the remaining jury was biased as a result of the defendant’s use of all
of the peremptory challenges.” Tillman, 514 N.W.2d at 108.
Having reviewed the testimony given by the two prospective jurors, we
doubt Royer’s claim that the court abused its discretion in refusing the grant his
motion to strike these jurors for cause. However, we need not reach that issue
because Royer fails to argue he suffered prejudice in accordance with
Neuendorf. He makes no argument that his use of his peremptory strikes to
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remove these two jurors resulted in a biased jury hearing the case. See id.
Instead, Royer only urges us to overrule Neuendorf and return to the prior rule
that presumed prejudice if the defendant had to use a peremptory strike to
remove the juror in question. See State v. Beckwith, 46 N.W.2d 20, 23 (Iowa
1951) (“[I]t is settled law that if a disqualified juror is left upon the jury in the face
of a proper challenge for cause, so that defendant must either use one of his
peremptory challenges or permit the juror to sit, and if defendant does use all of
his peremptory challenges, prejudice will be presumed. Defendant should not be
compelled to use his peremptory challenges upon prospective jurors who should
have been excused for cause.” (citation omitted)), overruled by Neuendorf, 509
N.W.2d at 746. “We are not at liberty to overturn Iowa Supreme Court
precedent.” State v. Hastings, 466 N.W.2d 697, 700 (Iowa Ct. App. 1990).
Because Royer failed to prove he was prejudiced by the district court’s refusal to
grant his motion to strike two jurors for cause, instead only urging us to presume
prejudice in contravention to the holding of Neuendorf, which we cannot do, we
deny this claim on appeal.
II. Admission of Evidence.
Next, Royer seeks a new trial due to the district court’s admission of
testimony from a police officer and a dash-cam video showing Royer being pulled
over weeks before the crime at issue in this case. Royer asserts the evidence in
question had limited probative value, was cumulative to other evidence, and was
highly prejudicial because it implied Royer was previously engaged in criminal
activity. We review the district court’s decision to admit evidence for an abuse of
discretion. See State v. Henderson, 696 N.W.2d 5, 10 (Iowa 2005).
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“Evidence is relevant if it has ‘any tendency to make the existence of any
fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or
less probable than it would be without the evidence.’” State v. Putman, 848
N.W.2d 1, 9 (Iowa 2014) (quoting Iowa R. Evid. 5.401). Evidence that is relevant
is admissible so long as the danger of unfair prejudice does not substantially
outweigh the evidence’s probative value. Iowa R. Evid. 5.403.
At issue in this case was the identity of the driver of a green Honda car
with a loud muffler and a spare tire on the rear driver’s side. The car was seen
stopped next to the victim, who w as riding a bicycle and appeared to be talking
to the occupant of the car, before shots rang out and the car sped away. The
officer’s testimony and dash-cam video showed that several weeks earlier Royer
was driving a green Honda with a loud muffler and a spare tire located on the
rear driver’s side of the vehicle. Other crimes, wrongs, and acts may be
admissible so long as the evidence is offered for a purpose other than to prove
the character of a person to show the person acted in conformity with that
character. See Iowa R. Evid. 5.404(b). The other purposes include “proof of
motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, or absence of
mistake or accident.” Id. The identity of the shooter was clearly at issue in this
case, and therefore, the officer’s testimony and the dash-cam video were
relevant evidence.
Next, we must address whether the relevant evidence should not have
been admitted because the evidence’s “probative value is substantially
outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion of the issues, or
misleading the jury, or by considerations of undue delay, waste of time, or
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needless presentation of cumulative evidence.” Iowa R. Evid. 5.403. The officer
testified he pulled over a the green Honda because he “observed a traffic
violation.” He identified Royer as the driver and asked Royer to step out of the
car. The dash-cam video confirmed this testimony, though no audio was played
for the jury.
The fact Royer was pulled over by police weeks before the shooting for a
“traffic violation” is not the type of evidence that is normally considered unfairly
prejudicial because it does not have a likelihood of inducing the jury to make a
decision on Royer’s guilt on an improper basis, such as an emotional reaction to
punish the defendant. See State v. Rodriquez, 636 N.W.2d 234, 240 (Iowa
2001) (“Unfairly prejudicial evidence is evidence that ‘appeals to the jury’s
sympathies, arouses its sense of horror, provokes its instinct to punish, or
triggers other mainsprings of human action [that] may cause a jury to base its
decision on something other than the established propositions in the case.’”
(alteration in original) (citation omitted)). Nor is the prior-acts evidence similar to
the charged crime so that the jury would infer the defendant committed the
current act because he committed the act on a previous occasion. See
Henderson, 696 N.W.2d at 13 (finding the admission of the defendant’s prior
drug conviction unfairly prejudiced the defendant where he was on trial for a drug
offense because the jury would have a hard time not allowing the information to
consciously or subconsciously influence their decision).
While there was other evidence admitted at Royer’s trial that also
connected him to the vehicle, we conclude the officer’s testimony was not unduly
cumulative in this case. The other evidence included testimony from two
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teenagers, who identified Royer as the person they spoke with who was driving
the green Honda with a loud muffler and spare tire on the rear driver’s side
moments before the teenagers heard gun shots, and the testimony of Royer’s
acquaintances, who testified he drove the car in question. In light of the fact the
officer testified he pulled Royer’s vehicle over for a “traffic violation” and the
evidence was not needlessly cumulative, we conclude the court did not abuse its
discretion in admitting the testimony of the officer and the dash-cam video.
We affirm Royer’s conviction.
AFFIRMED.