State of Iowa v. Deaaron Jacquia Simpson ( 2023 )

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 22-0334
Filed December 20, 2023
STATE OF IOWA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
vs.
DEAARON JACQUIA SIMPSON,
Defendant-Appellant.
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Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Dubuque County,
Monica Zrinyi Ackley, Judge.
A criminal defendant appeals his convictions for domestic abuse assault
causing bodily injury and assault causing serious injury. AFFIRMED.
Chris Raker of Alliance Law Office, P.C., East Dubuque, Illinois, for
appellant.
Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Genevieve Reinkoester, Assistant
Attorney General, for appellee.
Heard by Greer, P.J., and Ahlers and Buller, JJ.
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BULLER, Judge.
A jury found DeAaron Simpson guilty of domestic abuse assault causing
bodily injury and assault causing serious injury for beating his live-in girlfriend. On
appeal, Simpson claims a variety of errors, nearly all of which are waived or
unpreserved. We affirm.
I. Background Facts and Proceedings
Twenty-two-year-old S.M. moved out of her parents’ home and into
Simpson’s apartment. S.M. had been close with her family but virtually cut ties
with them after moving in with Simpson.
A few months after she moved, S.M. sent a message to a family group-text
with her mother, father, and one of her brothers:
Please do not respond….Add Steve to this group [as] well!!!!! I need
help getting my stuff out of here because I am in a very controlling
abusive relationship….DO NOT FUCKING RESPOND. First stop is
to jump my Jeep because it is dead.
S.M.’s mother called the police, and she and S.M.’s father drove to where they
believed S.M. was living with Simpson.
S.M.’s mother showed police the message, and they knocked on the
apartment door. S.M. answered, and police observed her to be “visibly upset,”
“crying,” and “scared,” with “bruises to her face and eyes and looked to be
assaulted.” Body-camera footage corroborated that description, as did S.M.’s
family.
S.M., through tears, told police Simpson assaulted her the night before and
“this happened more than once.” She said Simpson punched her in the face, head,
hand, and body multiple times with closed fists. And she explained that injuries to
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her hands were from holding them in front of her face for protection while Simpson
punched her. Police later opined the injuries were consistent with “defensive
wounds.”
S.M. described “yelling” and “begging” for Simpson to stop beating her. But
she said Simpson only stopped because her dog Lucky started barking. S.M.
emphasized she did not want law enforcement involved or charges filed. She told
one officer she wasn’t “pressing no charges” because she “wasn’t a snitch.”
With S.M.’s permission, police entered the apartment and found Simpson
sleeping. After waking, Simpson denied assaulting S.M. but confirmed she was
his live-in girlfriend. He told police “I don’t hit women,” and officers arrested him.
S.M.’s family took her to the hospital, where she told medical providers she
was there because of a “domestic” and she “got beat up by [her] partner.” Medical
records documented S.M.’s reports of pain, significant bruising and swelling, and
a fractured left hand.
The Dubuque County Attorney charged Simpson by trial information with
one count of domestic abuse assault causing bodily injury, a serious misdemeanor
in violation of Iowa Code section 708.2A(2)(b) (2021), and one count of assault
causing serious injury, a class “D” felony in violation of Iowa Code section 708.2(4).
A no-contact order prohibited contact between Simpson and S.M.
S.M. did not cooperate with police or prosecutors in the lead-up to trial. She
eventually gave a discovery deposition, in which she claimed to not recall the
attack and admitted she was pregnant with Simpson’s child, apparently conceived
in violation of the no-contact order. The State chose to not call S.M. as a witness
at trial, and Simpson tried to subpoena her without success.
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Simpson eventually offered S.M.’s discovery deposition into evidence, and
the court admitted it over the State’s objection. There was a disjointed back-and-
forth over whether the text-message S.M. sent her family would be included
because it was a deposition exhibit. The court ultimately admitted the entirety of
the discovery deposition, including the exhibit.
Simpson testified in his own defense. Because Simpson told police he did
not “hit women” on a video shown to the jury, the prosecutor impeached him with
a prior conviction for assaulting a woman. The prosecutor also impeached
Simpson’s testimony he was employed at the time of arrest by pointing to the
financial affidavit where Simpson swore that he had no income that year.
The jury found Simpson guilty as charged, and the court sentenced him to
prison. The court also, for a third time, denied S.M.’s request to dissolve the no-
contact order. The court explained that it was “very concerned for the well-being
and the safety of the victim in this case” in light of Simpson’s conduct—including
but not limited to multiple violations of the no-contact order. Simpson appeals.
II. Standard of Review
We generally review preserved evidentiary claims for abuse of discretion.
State v. Neiderbach, 837 N.W.2d 180, 190 (Iowa 2013). We review preserved
hearsay challenges for correction of errors at law. Id. And we review preserved
prosecutorial-misconduct claims for an abuse of discretion. Id.III. Discussion
Simpson makes a variety of claims relating to admission of S.M.’s
discovery-deposition transcript, the impeachment based on his financial affidavit,
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and alleged prosecutorial misconduct. We find all these claims plagued by various
waivers and failures to preserve error, and we address each separately.
A. The Deposition Transcript
Simpson’s first claim on appeal, as we understand it, is that the district court
should have found S.M. “unavailable” and admitted the transcribed discovery
deposition. Although we express no opinion on the merits of admitting the
transcript over the State’s objection, we find Simpson cannot complain about an
exhibit he successfully sought to admit. See State v. Trane, 984 N.W.2d 429, 435
(Iowa 2023) (finding defendant’s elicitation of evidence waived any objection to the
court considering it); McCracken v. Edward D. Jones & Co., 445 N.W.2d 375, 378
(Iowa Ct. App. 1989) (“[I]t is elementary a litigant cannot complain of error which
he has invited or to which he has assented.”).
To the extent Simpson urges a claim related to his decision to testify, we
find this argument was never made at trial. See Patchette v. State, 374
N.W.2d 397, 401 (Iowa 1985) (“We cannot consider an issue for the first time on
appeal, even if it is of constitutional dimension.”). And to the extent Simpson’s
appellate brief includes a passing reference to reading the deposition aloud instead
of submitting it as an exhibit, he cites no legal authority in support of this claim,
and we deem it waived. See Iowa R. App. P. 6.903(2)(g)(3) (requiring legal
authority to support contentions).
Given the murky record, we assume without deciding that a hearsay
objection to the text-message exhibit was preserved and adequately briefed on
appeal. We conclude the statement was an excited utterance. See Iowa R.
Evid. 5.803(2) (defining an excited utterance as “relating to a startling event or
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condition, made while the declarant was under the stress of excitement that it
caused”). The text message included an expletive, five exclamation points, and a
sentence in all capital letters. These are strong indicia of an excited state. See
Morten v. State, 215 A.3d 846, 851 (Md. Ct. Spec. App. 2019) (quoting Professor
Irving Younger’s explanation of an excited utterance in his famous lecture series:
“It begins with ‘My God’ and ends with an exclamation point!”). Any doubt as to
whether S.M.’s excited state persisted is dispelled here by the unanimous witness
accounts from family members and police, corroborated by body-camera
recordings, that indicate S.M. was still visibly distraught when police arrived soon
after the message was sent. See State v. Atwood, 602 N.W.2d 775, 782
(Iowa 1999) (setting forth factors to evaluate excited utterances); State v.
Stafford, 23 N.W.2d 832, 836–37 (Iowa 1946) (finding a statement made fourteen
hours after an event qualified as an excited utterance). And even if the text
message was not admissible under an exception to hearsay, overwhelming
evidence of Simpson’s guilt renders any error harmless, in part because the jury
heard substantially similar statements by S.M. on body-cam recordings played at
trial without objection. See State v. Elliott, 806 N.W.2d 660, 669 (Iowa 2011)
(considering hearsay evidence in context of cumulative evidence and harmless
error).
B. The Financial Affidavit
Simpson next claims the district court abused its discretion under Iowa
Rules of Evidence 5.401 (relevance) and 5.403 (substantially more unfairly
prejudicial than probative) when it permitted the prosecutor to impeach Simpson
with reference to statements in his financial affidavit. These objections were not
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made below, and Simpson did not obtain a ruling. We cannot consider the alleged
errors. 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.”).
C. Prosecutorial Misconduct
Simpson’s last claim asserts prosecutorial misconduct because the State
used his criminal history to impeach his statement that he did not “hit women.” The
only arguable objections made below were that Simpson did not believe the State
should mention that his prior conviction involved a sexual assault and he wanted
the prosecutor to mention the date of the offense. The prosecutor limited the
examination as requested at the direction or suggestion of the court. No objection
to prosecutorial misconduct was made below and Simpson did not move for a
mistrial. Error was not preserved. State v. Krogmann, 804 N.W.2d 518, 526
(Iowa 2011) (“[A defendant] cannot obtain a new trial based on prosecutorial
misconduct when he failed to move for a mistrial at the time.”).
IV. Disposition
Finding no reversible error properly before us, and recognizing
overwhelming evidence of Simpson’s guilt, we affirm his convictions.
AFFIRMED.