Opinion
No. 5-546 / 04-1487
Filed August 17, 2005
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Plymouth County, James D. Scott, Judge.
Schmitt appeals the dismissal of his postconviction relief application. AFFIRMED.
Michael J. Jacobsma, Klay, Veldhuizen, Bindner, DeJong Jacobsma, P.L.C., Orange City, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Sheryl A. Soich, Assistant Attorney General, and Darin J. Raymond, County Attorney, for appellee.
Considered by Zimmer, P.J., and Hecht and Vaitheswaran, JJ.
Michael Schmitt appeals the dismissal of his postconviction relief application. We affirm.
I. Background Facts and Proceedings
Twenty-year-old Michael Schmitt had sex with a fifteen-year-old girl. The State charged Schmitt with third-degree sexual abuse. Iowa Code § 709.4(2)(c)(4) (2001). Schmitt later pled guilty to five counts of assault with intent to commit sexual abuse. Id., § 709.11. The sentencing court imposed two-year prison terms, to be served consecutively, but ordered them suspended. Schmitt was placed on probation with special conditions.
Within months, the State applied to have Schmitt's probation revoked on the ground he violated the special conditions. Following a hearing, the district court found Schmitt indeed violated some of those conditions by leaving a residential treatment facility, having contact with the girl he pled guilty to assaulting, and failing to obtain permission to change his address and phone number. The court revoked Schmitt's probation and ordered him to serve a prison term not exceeding ten years, "[p]ursuant to the judgment previously entered."
The probation revocation court gave reasons for revoking Schmitt's probation but did not give reasons for imposing the original sentence. In State v. Lillibridge, 519 N.W.2d 82, 83 (Iowa 1994), the court held the entry of a sentence in a probation revocation proceeding was "the final judgment in the criminal case," requiring the court to state "how [probation] violations influenced the court to select the sentence it did." However, in State v. Kirby, 622 N.W.2d 506, 511 (Iowa 2001), the court held that a probation revocation court's "statement of reasons for revoking the probation sufficiently complies with rule 22's requirement of a statement of reasons for the sentence imposed."
Schmitt applied for postconviction relief. He asserted the probation revocation court "abused its discretion by revoking [his] probation and sentencing him to prison." The postconviction court rejected this argument and dismissed the application.
II. Scope of Review
On appeal from the postconviction court's ruling, we are not charged with deciding whether the probation revocation court abused its discretion in sentencing Schmitt to prison; that issue was for the postconviction court to decide. State v. Allen, 402 N.W.2d 438, 443 (Iowa 1987). Our role is limited to correction of legal error in the postconviction court's ruling. Id.; see also Barker v. State, 479 N.W.2d 275, 278 (Iowa 1991).
III. Postconviction Ruling
A postconviction court is to apply the following standards for review of a probation revocation decision: whether there was "sufficient evidence" to support the revocation and whether the probation revocation court exercised its discretion "on grounds or for reasons clearly untenable or to an extent clearly unreasonable." Allen, 402 N.W.2d at 443. The postconviction court used these standards.
The court determined there was sufficient evidence to establish that Schmitt violated the conditions of probation, as found by the probation revocation court. The court noted the violations were not "minor" and Schmitt's "failure to successfully enter into and complete sex offender treatment went to the very essence of his rehabilitation as a sex offender." The court also noted that Schmitt "continue[d] to justify his behavior as something other than criminal" based on the girl's consent to the sexual contact at the time it occurred as well as his ongoing relationship with her. The court concluded the probation revocation court's "decision to impose the original prison term where sex offender treatment is offered cannot be said to be `for reasons clearly untenable or to an extent clearly unreasonable.'"
As the postconviction court used the correct standards for review of a probation revocation decision, the only remaining question is whether the substance of the court's decision contained any errors of law. Schmitt suggests that the court misapprehended his argument as a challenge to the validity of the statute under which he was originally charged. See Iowa Code § 709.4(2)(c)(4) (defining third-degree sexual abuse as a sex act with a person who is fourteen or fifteen years old by a person who is four or more years older). On our review of the postconviction record, we cannot agree with Schmitt that the court misapprehended his argument. Much of that record was devoted to Schmitt's ongoing relationship with the girl and attestations that he was not a danger to her. The postconviction court reasonably could have surmised from this testimony that Schmitt was attacking the validity and fairness of Iowa Code section 709.4(2)(c)(4). The fact that the court addressed this issue in no way infects the balance of the decision with legal error. The court cited the crime to which Schmitt pled guilty, discussed the factors that precipitated revocation of his probation, and focused the decision on the sentence imposed by the probation revocation court. We discern no error in the court's discussion of the third-degree sexual abuse statute.
The postconviction court made reference to section 709.11 which is the statute on assault with intent to commit sexual abuse, but the court's discussion of this argument addressed section 709.4(2)(c).
Schmitt also suggests that a "psychosexual assessment" of him was based on the incorrect premise that he pled guilty to six counts of sexual abuse in the third degree rather than five counts of assault with intent to commit sexual abuse. Schmitt does not argue that either the probation revocation court or the postconviction court cited or relied on this inaccurate information. Therefore, the information cannot serve as the basis for a finding of error.
IV. Disposition
We affirm the district court's dismissal of Schmitt's postconviction relief action.