State of Iowa v. Scott Allen Doornink

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 13-1823
Filed September 10, 2015
STATE OF IOWA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
vs.
SCOTT ALLEN DOORNINK,
Defendant-Appellant.
________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Johnson County, Stephen B.
Jackson Jr., Judge.
The defendant appeals the denial of his motion for correction of an illegal
sentence. REVERSED IN PART AND REMANDED.
Mark C. Smith, State Appellate Defender, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Kevin Cmelik and Kelli Huser,
Assistant Attorneys General, Janet Lyness, County Attorney, and Dana
Christiansen, Assistant County Attorney, for appellee.
Considered by Danilson, C.J., Vogel, J., and Miller, S.J.*
*Senior judge assigned by order pursuant to Iowa Code section 602.9206 (2015).
2
MILLER, S.J.
Scott Allen Doornink, a fifty-year-old man, pled guilty to sexual abuse in
the third degree, in violation of Iowa Code section 709.4(2)(c)(4) (2011), for
having genital-to-genital contact with a fifteen-year-old girl. He was sentenced to
an indeterminate term of incarceration of no more than ten years, which he is
currently serving. Pursuant to Iowa Code section 903B.1, the district court also
imposed a mandatory special sentence committing Doornink to the custody of
the Director of the Iowa Department of Corrections for life, as if on parole or work
release, to begin after he completes his prison sentence.
Doornink did not appeal. Almost two years after sentencing he filed a
“Motion for Correction of an Illegal Sentence.” In his motion he asserted the
special sentence violated constitutional prohibitions against double jeopardy and
cruel and unusual punishment. The district court addressed and ruled on the
merits of Doornink’s constitutional challenges, and denied his motion.
Doornink appeals the denial of his motion. On appeal he contends the
section 903B.1 special sentence is grossly disproportionate to the crime he
committed, in violation of the cruel and unusual punishment proscriptions of the
Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution, and article I, section 17 of
the Iowa Constitution.1 The State asserts, in part, that Doornink’s constitutional
challenge was not yet ripe.
In rejecting Doornink’s cruel and unusual punishment claim, the district
court relied heavily on a 2009 decision by our court of appeals, State v. Harkins,
1
Doornink does not challenge the portion of the district court’s ruling that rejected his
double jeopardy claim.
3
786 N.W.2d 498, 508 (Iowa Ct. App. 2009), which held that Harkins’s attorney
did not render ineffective assistance by not arguing section 903B.1 violated the
cruel and unusual punishment proscription of the United States Constitution. The
next year our supreme court decided State v. Tripp, 776 N.W.2d 855 (Iowa
2010). Tripp involved a defendant who had pled guilty to the same crime as
Doornink, sexual abuse in the third degree, in violation of Iowa Code section
709.4(2)(c)(4) (2007). 776 N.W.2d at 856.2 Tripp had been sentenced to lifetime
parole pursuant to section 903B.1 and argued that portion of his sentence
constituted cruel and unusual punishment under the federal and Iowa
constitutions. Id. at 856-57.
Tripp had been granted a suspended sentence, was on probation at the
time of his appeal, and had not yet begun to serve his special sentence. Id. at
857-58. The court noted it did not know what the terms of Tripp’s parole would
be or the extent to which they might be onerous. Id. at 858. It noted that even
standard terms of his parole might be deleted. Id. The court found that the
extent of any additional punishment for violation of any conditions of parole was
speculative. Id. Finally, it found significant that the special sentence was not
necessarily for life, as section 903B.1 provides for the possibility of release from
parole. Id.
Our supreme court concluded in Tripp that because Tripp’s case did not
present “an actual, present controversy,” but rather “one that is merely
hypothetical or speculative,” it was “not ripe for adjudication.” Id. at 859
2
The 2007 version of this provision is identical to the 2011 version involved in
Doornink’s case.
4
(emphasis added) (citing with approval State v. Schreiner, 754 N.W.2d 742, 764-
66 (Neb. 2008) (finding a defendant’s constitutional challenge to the lifetime
community supervision provisions of Nebraska law were not ripe for review
where defendant convicted of first-degree sexual assault had not yet been
released from incarceration)). The court therefore merely affirmed Tripp’s
conviction. Id.
For the same reasons stated in Tripp, Doornink’s cruel and unusual
punishment challenge to the constitutionality of his special sentence is not ripe
for adjudication. When a claim is not ripe for adjudication, the court is without
authority to hear it and must dismiss it. Molo Oil Co. v. City of Dubuque, 692
N.W.2d 686, 692 (Iowa 2005); Iowa Coal Mining Co. v. Monroe Cnty., 555
N.W.2d 418, 432 (Iowa 1996). We conclude that rather than addressing the
merits of Doornink’s cruel and unusual punishment challenge, the district court
should have dismissed it. We therefore reverse the part of the district court’s
ruling that addressed Doornink’s cruel and unusual punishment challenge to his
special sentence and remand to the district court to dismiss that part of his
motion.
REVERSED IN PART AND REMANDED.