State of Iowa v. Jeremy Mathrole

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 21-1141
Filed December 21, 2022
STATE OF IOWA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
vs.
JEREMY MATHROLE,
Defendant-Appellant.
________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Marshall County, Kim Riley, District
Associate Judge.
Jeremy Mathrole appeals the denial of his application to modify his sex
offender registration requirement. REVERSED AND REMANDED.
Taylor Reichardt of Kaplan & Frese, LLP, Marshalltown, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Timothy M. Hau, Assistant Attorney
General, for appellee.
Considered by Schumacher, P.J., Chicchelly, J., and Carr, S.J.*
*Senior judge assigned by order pursuant to Iowa Code section 602.9206
(2022).
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CARR, Senior Judge.
In July 2001, Jeremy Mathrole was convicted of assault with intent to
commit sexual abuse. See Iowa Code § 709.11 (2001). The court imposed a
suspended prison sentence and placed him on probation. His conviction required
him to register as a sex offender.
In February 2021, Mathrole filed an application to modify his sex offender
registration requirement. As part of his application, he underwent a risk
assessment. The risk assessment scored Mathrole’s risk of reoffense under three
different tools: the STATIC-99R, the STABLE-2007, and the ISORA. The risk
assessment provided two different scores for the STATIC-99R: the base
STATIC-99R measures static risk factors that do not change, and the revised
STATIC-99R reduces Mathrole’s risk of reoffending based on his time living in the
community without committing another sex offense. The risk assessment showed
Mathrole’s scores for each tool individually and combined as follows:
Base STATIC-99R Above Average Risk
Revised STATIC-99R Very Low Risk
STABLE-2007 Low Risk
ISORA Moderate Risk
Base STATIC-99R & STABLE-2007 Moderate Low Risk
Revised STATIC-99R & STABLE-2007 Low Risk
Base STATIC-99R & ISORA Moderate High Risk
At the hearing, the assessor testified there is not enough research to combine the
Revised STATIC-99R and the ISORA into a valid composite score. After the
hearing, the district court found Mathrole failed to meet the threshold for
modification because his assessment scores “were not consistently ‘low risk.’”
Thus, the court rejected his application. He appeals.
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The Iowa Code allows the district court to “consider modification of the sex
offender registration obligation if certain criteria are met. This initial threshold
determination is reviewed for correction of errors at law.” Fortune v. State, 957
N.W.2d 696, 702 (Iowa 2021). When reviewing for correction of errors, we will
affirm the district court if its decision is supported by substantial evidence. See
State v. Crawford, 972 N.W.2d 189, 202 (Iowa 2022). “If the applicant meets the
threshold statutory requirements, the district court proceeds to the second step,
namely, determining, in its discretion, whether the registration requirements should
be modified.” Fortune, 957 N.W.2d at 705.
The district court found Mathrole failed to meet the threshold showing that
“[a] risk assessment has been completed and the sex offender was classified as a
low risk to reoffend.” Iowa Code § 692A.128(2)(c) (2021). Mathrole argues his
risk assessment showed he was a low risk to offend and the district court erred in
requiring his scores to be “consistently ‘low risk.’” He acknowledges his Base
STATIC-99R and ISORA scores showed his risk to reoffend was above “low,” but
he argues these scores only consider static factors at the time he was placed on
probation and ignore his record without a sex offense since then.
The Iowa Supreme Court has considered the STATIC-99R, STABLE-2007,
and ISORA scores in evaluating whether an applicant for modification is a low risk
to offend. See Fortune, 957 N.W.2d at 701–02; Becher v. State, 957 N.W.2d 710,
713 (Iowa 2021). Mathrole correctly notes the supreme court found an abuse of
discretion when the district court failed to put the “STATIC-99R score into proper
context” and did not consider the applicant’s “time in the community without
reoffense.” Becher, 957 N.W.2d at 716. However, the court did so for the second
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step of the modification framework when the district court applies its discretion and
not for the threshold statutory criteria.
As we describe above, Mathrole was administered three risk assessments
which were scored alone, and some of the assessments were also scored together
by the department of corrections assessor. Some showed low risk, others
moderate to moderately high risk. The risk assessment report in evidence notes
the disparity in scores but does not correlate the multiple scores into a final
assessment of whether, considered together, Mathrole is deemed a “low risk” to
reoffend. On this record, it was left to the trial court to reach its own conclusion on
the point, which it resolved against Mathrole, noting his scores were not
“consistently low risk.” We do not agree that all individual scores must be low risk
to clear the threshold. In Fortune, the applicant presented four low scores and one
average risk score. 957 N.W.2d at 701. It was conceded that he met the statutory
criteria for modification. Id. at 704. In Becher, 957 N.W.2d at 713, the offender
scored low, low, low, lowest and below average but was deemed by the evaluator
to be “very low risk.” By requiring all scores to be low risk, the trial court erred.
The proper question is whether, considering all the scores together, the offender
is evaluated as low risk to reoffend.
We reverse the trial court’s order denying modification and remand for
further proceedings, with the trial court to reconsider the threshold criteria without
requiring all individual or combined scores to be “low risk.”
REVERSED AND REMANDED.