State v. Heims

1

STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. NICOLAS ROSS HEIMS, Defendant-Appellant

No. 23-0087

Court of Appeals of Iowa

April 24, 2024

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Muscatine County, Tom Reidel (trial) and Joel W. Barrows (pretrial motion and motion to dismiss), Judges.

Nicolas Heims appeals his criminal convictions. Affirmed.

Mark C. Meyer, Cedar Rapids, for appellant.

Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Louis S. Sloven, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee.

Considered by Greer, P.J., and Ahlers and Buller, JJ.

AHLERS, JUDGE

From evidence introduced at Nicolas Heims's second criminal trial, we glean the following facts. Heims pursued a romantic relationship with a coworker, but she generally rebuffed him. Eventually, she agreed to cook him dinner at her house. Not long after that meal, Heims showed up at the coworker's house claiming he needed a place to stay. The coworker kindly permitted Heims to stay, but only for a few days. But Heims didn't leave. He refused to sign a lease or submit to a background check as the coworker requested, and he began to ignore rules she had set for his stay. The coworker testified that, during the several months from when Heims moved in until she was able to evict him, Heims sexually assaulted her four separate times, destroyed her property in her house, and harassed her.

Heims's conduct led to the State originally charging him with nine crimes. The State later moved to amend the trial information to charge a tenth crime. Heims did not resist the motion, and the motion was granted, resulting in these ten charges:

Count

Charge

Level of Crime

I

Sexual abuse in the third degree

Class “C” felony

II

Sexual abuse in the third degree

Class “C” felony

III

Sexual abuse in the third degree

Class “C” felony

IV

Sexual abuse in the third degree

Class “C” felony

V

Harassment in the first degree

Aggravated misdemeanor

VI

Domestic abuse assault by strangulation

Class “D” felony

VII

Domestic abuse assault while displaying a dangerous weapon

Aggravated misdemeanor

VIII

Domestic abuse assault causing bodily injury

Serious misdemeanor

IX

Willful injury causing bodily injury

Class “D” felony

X

Criminal mischief in the first degree

Class “C” felony

The case proceeded to a jury trial on the ten charges. On a defense motion, the trial ended in a mistrial after a witness mentioned a topic that the parties had agreed would be off limits.

Before the case was brought to trial a second time, the State moved to amend the trial information a second time to raise the charge in count I from sexual abuse in the third degree to sexual abuse in the second degree and to add an eleventh charge of theft in the first degree. Heims resisted this motion, and, for the first time, he raised an objection to the first amendment. The district court ultimately denied the motion seeking a second amendment but denied Heims's challenge to the first amendment. As a result of these rulings, Heims was set to face the same charges on retrial as he had prior to the mistrial. Before the second trial, Heims waived his right to a jury trial and agreed to a bench trial. Also, two days before the second trial, he moved to dismiss all charges against him on double jeopardy grounds.

The case proceeded to a bench trial. During the trial, the district court granted Heims's motion for judgment of acquittal as to any assault charge that had a domestic-abuse component, finding the State failed to prove that Heims and the coworker were in a domestic relationship. See Iowa Code § 708.2A(1) (2021) (defining "domestic abuse assault" as an assault that is "domestic abuse" as defined in section 236.2(2)(a)-(d)); see also id. § 236.2(2) (defining "domestic abuse"). The district court reached the following verdicts on the charges:

Count

Original Charge

Verdict

I

Sexual abuse in the third degree

Guilty as charged

II

Sexual abuse in the third degree

Not guilty

III

Sexual abuse in the third degree

Not guilty

IV

Sexual abuse in the third degree

Not guilty

V

Harassment in the first degree

Guilty of lesser charge of harassment in the third degree

VI

Domestic abuse assault by strangulation

Guilty of lesser charge of assault causing bodily injury

VII

Domestic abuse assault while displaying a dangerous weapon

Not guilty

VIII

Domestic abuse assault causing bodily injury

Guilty of lesser charge of assault

IX

Willful injury causing bodily injury

Guilty as charged

X

Criminal mischief in the first degree

Guilty of lesser charge of criminal mischief in the fourth degree

Prior to sentencing, the judge who presided over the first trial held a hearing on Heims's motion to dismiss and denied it. Heims also filed a motion for new trial related to the second trial, contending his convictions were not supported by the weight of the evidence. The judge who presided over the second trial held a hearing on the motion, denied it, and sentenced Heims. The court merged counts VI and IX for purposes of sentencing and sentenced Heims to a combination of concurrent and consecutive sentences that resulted in a prison term not to exceed sixteen years.

Heims appeals. He contends: (1) the Double Jeopardy Clauses of the United States and Iowa Constitutions barred his retrial after a mistrial was declared; (2) the district court erred in allowing the State to amend the trial information to add the criminal-mischief charge; (3) insufficient evidence supports his conviction for criminal mischief; and (4) the district court erred by not granting his motion for new trial because the weight of the evidence does not support his convictions for sexual abuse in the third degree, assault causing bodily injury, and willful injury causing bodily injury.

I. Double Jeopardy

To set the stage for Heims's double-jeopardy claim, we provide additional background beginning with a pretrial agreement made before the first trial. As the first trial was set to begin, Heims had pending charges in a different case alleging he had assaulted another woman. The parties here agreed that evidence about Heims's alleged assault of the other woman or the charges against him related to it would not be presented because it would be unfairly prejudicial. The pretrial agreement did not prohibit all references to the other woman.

During the trial, the prosecutor mentioned the other woman in her opening statement and when questioning Heims's coworker (the complaining witness against him), but those references were within the confines of the pretrial agreement. As the coworker was questioned about Heims sexually assaulting her she began to testify in a manner that would potentially violate the pretrial agreement, but the prosecutor promptly cut her off and steered her away from the forbidden topic. The give-and-take of the questioning that followed shows that the coworker tended to stray off topic during her testimony despite the prosecutor's efforts to keep her on topic. Eventually, after the coworker made various nonresponsive comments about Heims telling her his belief that he would be incarcerated for his past actions, the prosecutor tried to steer her toward the topic of Heims grabbing her cell phone. In response, the coworker testified to Heims grabbing her phone, going through it, and throwing it across the room, but then, unprompted, added:

After he got up from doing whatever he was doing to me and talking about [the other woman], what he did to her, when he found out, like he went crazier. He goes, Bitch, I will kill you. I will kill you tonight. So if you get out from this room, you're going to pay the consequences.

Without prompting from the attorneys, the court called the attorneys to the bench to discuss the coworker's testimony, as the court believed she had touched on a discussion of the other woman that was prohibited by the pretrial agreement. Defense counsel expressed concern that the statement, in conjunction with other references to the other woman and going to prison would be unfairly prejudicial to Heims and asked for a mistrial and dismissal. Heims's counsel then acknowledged, "I'm not blaming [the prosecutor]. She didn't ask the question ...." The prosecutor argued that a mistrial was unwarranted. She added, "I have talked with the witness, you know, and I've indicated to her what we had agreed to. She's just very emotional at this point in time .... [A]nd I can talk with her further about that issue." The court granted the mistrial.

Two days before the second trial, Heims moved to dismiss the charges. In direct conflict with the concession made at the first trial that the prosecutor was not to blame for the coworker's comments that led to the mistrial, Heims's counsel argued dismissal was required because the prosecutor intentionally goaded him into moving for a mistrial. The court rejected Heims's argument and denied the motion finding retrial would not violate Heims's double-jeopardy rights.

With this history as our backdrop, we address Heims's claim that his motion to dismiss should have been granted on double-jeopardy grounds.

Because double jeopardy is a constitutional issue, our review is de novo. State v. Goodson, 958 N.W.2d 791, 798 (Iowa 2021). Both the United States and Iowa Constitutions prohibit retrial for the same offense.^[1] U.S. Const. amend. V; Iowa Const. art I, § 12. When a defendant moves for a mistrial, the defendant may generally be tried again without offending the Double Jeopardy Clause. State v. Swartz, 541 N.W.2d 533, 537 (Iowa Ct. App. 1995). But when a prosecutor, through misconduct, intends to goad the defendant into moving for a mistrial, the Double Jeopardy Clause bars retrial. State v. Rademacher, 433 N.W.2d 754, 757 (Iowa 1988).

In ruling on Heims's motion, the same judge who presided over the...