Opinion
No. 131 / 00-1394.
Filed November 15, 2001.
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, D.J. STOVALL, Judge.
Defendant appeals from order of victim restitution under Iowa Code section 910.3B (1999).
AFFIRMED.
Linda Del Gallo, State Appellate Defender, and Theresa Wilson, Assistant State Appellate Defender, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Martha E. Boesen, Assistant Attorney General, John P. Sarcone, County Attorney, and Jeff Noble and Teresa Vens, Assistant County Attorneys, for appellee.
The defendant, Eric Konchalski, appeals from an order of restitution directing him to pay $150,000 to the victim's estate under Iowa Code section 910.3B (1999). Defendant urges that (1) the mandatory $150,000 restitution award required under section 910.3B denies him both procedural and substantive due process of law as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and article I, section 9 of the Iowa Constitution; and (2) the district court erred in failing to consider whether the restitution award was an excessive fine in violation of the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution of United States and article I, section 17 of the Iowa Constitution. We conclude the mandatory restitution award under Iowa Code section 910.3B does not violate any of these constitutional provisions. Consequently, we affirm the judgment of the district court.
I. Background Facts and Proceedings .
On September 26, 1999, Des Moines police officers were dispatched on a reported shooting to a residence owned by Billy Joe Weese and occupied by defendant and his wife, Joy Konchalski, and their minor children. Defendant was observed running between houses and was armed with a handgun. He was taken into custody and admitted shooting Mr. Weese with the handgun.
Police found Mr. Weese lying on the ground at the rear of the residence. He suffered a single gunshot wound to the right side of his chest. Medical examination revealed that the bullet penetrated his heart and both lungs. The gunshot wound was determined to be the cause of his death.
Mr. Weese had spent the night with the Konchalski family, but left the residence on the morning of September 26. Defendant and his wife were in the midst of an ongoing disagreement over her relationship with Mr. Weese, who was her uncle. Mr. Weese was called to the residence after an altercation between defendant and his wife. When he arrived, defendant was in the backyard. Mr. Weese went to the backyard to talk with defendant. Shortly thereafter, a single gunshot was heard.
Defendant was charged with murder in the first degree under Iowa Code sections 707.1, 707.2(1), and 707.2(2). After the charge was amended to voluntary manslaughter, defendant agreed to a bench trial on the minutes. The district court found defendant guilty of intentionally shooting and killing Mr. Weese as the result of a sudden, violent, and irresistible passion resulting from a serious provocation in violation of Iowa Code section 707.4. Defendant was sentenced to an indeterminate sentence of incarceration not to exceed ten years. The district court also imposed a victim restitution award in the amount of $150,000 under section 910.3B. At defendant's request, a restitution hearing was held pursuant to Iowa Code section 910.7. The district court denied defendant's request to vacate the $150,000 restitution award to be paid to the victim's estate.
II. Due Process .
Iowa Code section 910.3B requires restitution of at least $150,000 when a defendant is convicted of a felony resulting in the death of the victim. That section states, in relevant part:
In all criminal cases in which the offender is convicted of a felony in which the act or acts committed by the offender caused the death of another person, in addition to the amount determined to be payable and ordered to be paid to a victim for pecuniary damages, as defined under section 910.1, and determined under section 910.3, the court shall also order the offender to pay at least one hundred fifty thousand dollars in restitution to the victim's estate. The obligation to pay the additional amount shall not be dischargeable in any proceeding under the federal Bankruptcy Act. . . .
Defendant lodges both procedural and substantive due process challenges to the section 910.3B restitution scheme. In considering his procedural due process challenge, we must accept the burden that section 910.3B imposes on defendant as binding substantive law and only ponder whether he was afforded procedural due process in the determination of whether this statutory burden falls on him. We answered that question in State v. Izzolena, 609 N.W.2d 541, 552-53 (Iowa 2000), by holding that the procedural rights afforded at the criminal trial and the right to seek review of a restitution award under Iowa Code section 910.7 provided sufficient procedural means to challenge whether the burden of the statute falls on a defendant in a particular case. Consequently, we reject defendant's procedural due-process argument.
Defendant's substantive due-process challenge to the section 910.3B restitution scheme is stated as follows.
The due process question, however, is whether the legislature can pull a figure out of the air and award it across the board, in every case, as compensatory and/or punitive damages to another.
Defendant urges that the criminal sanction at issue here should be subject to the same scrutiny as an award of punitive damages in a civil action. Viewing the sanction in that light, defendant urges that it fails to meet the due-process standards that the Supreme Court has established for civil punitive-damage awards in BMW of North America, Inc. v. Gore, 517 U.S. 559, 568, 116 S.Ct. 1589, 1595, 134 L.Ed.2d 809, 822 (1996), and Pacific Mutual Life Insurance Co. v. Haslip, 499 U.S. 1, 22, 111 S.Ct. 1032, 1045-46, 113 L.Ed.2d 1, 22 (1991).
We are not persuaded that cases dealing with punitive damages in a civil context offer any guidance with respect to the constitutionality of the criminal sanction at issue here. The determination of punitive damages in civil cases occurs by a process of ad hoc adjudication in each case. The criminal sanction at issue here is fixed by a legislative enactment that we have said is akin to a fine. Izzolena, 609 N.W.2d at 547-49.
We must uphold section 910.3B as against defendant's substantive due-process challenge if there is "a `reasonable fit' between governmental purpose . . . and the means chosen to advance that purpose." State v. Klawonn, 609 N.W.2d 515, 519 (Iowa 2000) (citation omitted). In Klawonn we held that there was a reasonable fit between the purpose of the statute and the means chosen to advance that purpose. Klawonn is dispositive of defendant's substantive due-process challenge, and that challenge is rejected.
III. Excessive Fine .
In Izzolena, 609 N.W.2d at 547-49, we upheld the section 910.3B restitution scheme in the face of an excessive-fine challenge in a case involving an involuntary manslaughter conviction. As a result of that decision, it would be manifestly inconsistent to conclude that the statute imposes an excessive fine when applied to the more serious offense of voluntary manslaughter. Consequently, defendant's claim of an excessive fine is rejected.
We have considered all issues presented and conclude that the judgment of the district court should be affirmed.
AFFIRMED.
This is not a published opinion.