State of Iowa v. Benjamin Roy Monson ( 2022 )

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 21-0213
Filed March 30, 2022
STATE OF IOWA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
vs.
BENJAMIN ROY MONSON,
Defendant-Appellant.
________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Cerro Gordo County, Colleen
Weiland, Judge.
Benjamin Monson appeals his convictions for two counts of third-degree
sexual abuse. AFFIRMED.
Martha J. Lucey, State Appellate Defender, and Theresa R. Wilson,
Assistant Appellate Defender, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Sheryl Soich, Assistant Attorney
General, for appellee.
Considered by Bower, C.J., and Vaitheswaran and Chicchelly, JJ.
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CHICCHELLY, Judge.
Benjamin Monson appeals his convictions for two counts of third-degree
sexual abuse. He alleges the district court abused its discretion by denying his
motion to sever the charges for separate trials. Because Monson has failed to
demonstrate that any prejudice arising from joinder outweighed the State’s interest
in judicial economy, we affirm his convictions.
I. Background Facts and Proceedings.
The State charged Monson with two counts of third-degree sexual abuse
arising from alleged non-consensual sex with two different intoxicated women two
weeks apart. See Iowa Code § 709.4(1) (2018). High school student D.B. and
college student A.T. did not know each other. Each spent a different night drinking
alcohol with Monson in the fall of 2018 and afterwards reported that Monson
sexually abused her. After DNA results linked Monson to both young women, he
claimed that he had consensual sex with each of them the morning before the
alleged incidents and not at the times that they alleged.
Monson moved to sever the charges for separate trials. The district court
denied the motion and found him guilty as charged after a bench trial. Monson
timely filed the appeal now before us.
II. Review.
We review a district court’s “refusal to sever multiple charges against a
single defendant for abuse of discretion.” State v. Romer, 832 N.W.2d 169, 174
(Iowa 2013) (quoting State v. Elston, 735 N.W.2d 196, 198 (Iowa 2007)). “To prove
the district court abused its discretion in refusing to sever charges, [the defendant]
bears the burden of showing prejudice resulting from joinder outweighed the
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State’s interest in judicial economy.” Id. at 181 (alteration in original) (citation
omitted). Moreover, “[a]n abuse of discretion occurs when a district court exercises
its discretion on grounds or for reasons clearly untenable or to an extent clearly
unreasonable.” State v. Mulatillo, 907 N.W.2d 511, 518 (Iowa 2018) (citation
omitted).
III. Analysis.
Iowa’s approach to joinder has been set forth in a series of Iowa Supreme
Court opinions cited by both parties. See Romer, 832 N.W.2d at 181–83; Elston,
735 N.W.2d at 198–200; State v. Lam, 391 N.W.2d 245, 249–51 (Iowa 1986). As
explained therein, Iowa follows a bifurcated approach whereby the court first
determines whether joinder is permissible, and if so, considers whether joinder
would nonetheless result in unfair prejudice and require severance. See Romer,
832 N.W.2d at 181–83.
In molding this approach, the Iowa Supreme Court has squarely rejected an
Iowa Rule of Evidence 5.404(b) analysis in the formula. See id. at 183 (“His only
arguments in this area pertain to our evidentiary rule on propensity, which we have
unequivocally established as distinct from an analysis under our law dealing with
joinder of offenses.”); Lam, 391 N.W.2d at 249 (“The two rules deal with different
questions, making the wholesale importation of the evidentiary rule into the law
dealing with joinder of offenses inappropriate.” (citation omitted)). Monson
contends that Romer, Elston, and Lam were incorrectly decided with respect to the
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irrelevance of a rule 5.404(b) analysis in assessing the propriety of joinder.1
However, this law is controlling. See State v. Miller, 841 N.W.2d 583, 584 n.1
(Iowa 2014) (“Generally, it is the role of the supreme court to decide if case
precedent should no longer be followed.”).
Monson suggests that the Iowa Supreme Court’s ruling in State v. Cox
regarding the admission of prior sexual offenses should similarly exclude Monson’s
sexual abuse of another victim and require severance of the charges. 781 N.W.2d
757, 772 (Iowa 2010). However, even after Cox was decided in 2010, the Iowa
Supreme Court reaffirmed its joinder analysis in Romer in 2015, and no
subsequent factual or legal developments have mandated a different framework.
See Romer, 832 N.W.2d at 183; State v. Cook, No. 17-1524, 2018 WL 6120243,
at *1 (Iowa Ct. App. Nov. 21, 2018) (finding that “based on the potential duplication
of witnesses in separate trials and the trial court’s ability to caution jurors at trial
concerning their deliberations on each count, the Court finds the State’s judicial
economy concerns outweigh the prejudice of having one trial with two complaining
witnesses”).
With the law settled, we find no abuse of discretion in the district court’s
application. Pursuant to Iowa Rule of Criminal Procedure 2.6(1), the State may
prosecute contemporaneously two or more offenses that arise from a common
scheme or plan. Lam, 391 N.W.2d at 249. In analyzing whether a common
1The State asserts Monson’s argument in this regard was not properly preserved.
However, “it would make little sense to require a party to argue existing law should
be overturned before a court without the authority to do so.” State v. Williams, 895
N.W.2d 856, 872 n.2 (Iowa 2017). Regardless, we decline to disturb existing
precedent.
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scheme or plan exists, “we have found it helpful to consider factors such as intent,
modus operandi, and the temporal and geographic proximity of the crimes.”
Elston, 735 N.W.2d at 199 (quoting State v. Oetken, 613 N.W.2d 679, 688 (Iowa
2000)). Essentially, we consider whether the defendant “carried out similar acts in
similar ways.” State v. Umana, No. 11-9667, 2012 WL 4513859, at *6 (Iowa Ct.
App. Oct. 3, 2012).
However, there should also be a “common link,” which is usually described
as behavior emanating from “a single or continuing motive.” Oetken, 613 N.W.2d
at 688. In this regard, “Iowa cases have not set a high bar.” State v. Wise, No.
19-1353, 2021 WL 1400771, at *2 (Iowa Ct. App. Apr. 14, 2021). Examples include
a “desire to satisfy sexual desires through the victimization of children” in both
Romer, 832 N.W.2d at 182, and Elston, 735 N.W.2d at 199, and the intent to obtain
“small portable objects from apartments for money” in Lam, 391 N.W.2d at 250.
Here, the court found that the charges against Monson arose out of a
common scheme or plan. Specifically, the alleged acts occurred with temporal and
geographic proximity, as they were within fifteen days of each other and about four
miles apart. The State alleged that Monson exhibited a single or continuing motive
and utilized the same modus operandi by secluding and victimizing extremely
intoxicated young female acquaintances for his sexual gratification after providing
them with alcohol. The district court also noted the significance of Monson
claiming the same defense in each instance: 1) consensual sex with each alleged
victim in the morning, and 2) intoxication, for the purpose of any possible lesser
included offense requiring specific intent. Given these circumstances, we find no
abuse of discretion in the trial court’s determination.
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Upon finding joinder was permissible, the next step was to determine
whether prejudice outweighed the State’s interest in judicial economy. By their
very nature, prior bad acts involving sexual offenses are prejudicial. However, we
agree that the introduction of Monson’s alleged prior bad act did not rise to the
level of prejudice outweighing the judicial economy of one trial. The State indicated
that, in addition to the two victims, two of the investigating officers, the DNA
criminalist, the crime scene technician, and the defendant’s expert on intoxication
would have been called to testify at both trials. See Romer, 832 N.W.2d at 183
(holding a “single trial was in the interest of judicial economy as it was then
unnecessary to require numerous witnesses to testify at multiple trials”). Finally,
any prejudice arising from joinder was minimized by Monson’s bench trial. See
State v. Geier, 484 N.W.2d 167, 172–73 (Iowa 1992) (finding that in a bench trial,
“there is less likelihood that a failure to sever has prejudiced the defendant than in
a trial to a jury. By virtue of training and experience, the court is better able to
compartmentalize the evidence regarding the various charges and guard against
the prejudice a severance seeks to prevent.”).
Because Monson has failed to demonstrate that any prejudice arising from
joinder outweighed the State’s interest in judicial economy, we find no abuse of
discretion in the district court’s refusal to sever his charges.
AFFIRMED.