Opinion
No. 5-853 / 04-1955
Filed January 19, 2006
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Hardin County, Timothy J. Finn, Judge.
James Lampman appeals from the sentence entered upon his sexual abuse convictions. AFFIRMED.
Linda Del Gallo, State Appellate Defender, and Dennis D. Hendrickson, Assistant Appellate Defender, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Darrel Mullins and Virginia Barchman, Assistant Attorneys General, and Richard N. Dunn, County Attorney, for appellee.
Considered by Huitink, P.J., and Mahan and Hecht, JJ.
Following his convictions for second-degree sexual abuse and third-degree sexual abuse, the court sentenced James Lampman to consecutive indeterminate terms of twenty-five and ten years. Lampman appeals, contending the district court abused its discretion by giving inadequate reasons for imposing consecutive sentences.
Where, as here, a defendant does not assert that the imposed sentence is outside the statutory limits, the sentence will be set aside only for an abuse of discretion. State v. Neary, 470 N.W.2d 27, 29 (Iowa 1991). An abuse of discretion is found only when the sentencing court exercises its discretion on grounds or for reasons clearly untenable or to an extent clearly unreasonable. Id.
The trial court generally has discretion to impose concurrent or consecutive sentences for convictions on separate counts. State v. Criswell, 242 N.W.2d 259, 260 (Iowa 1976). The duty of a sentencing court to provide an explanation for a sentence includes the reasons for imposing consecutive sentences. See State v. Harrington, 349 N.W.2d 758, 763 (Iowa 1984). The explanation does not need to be detailed, but must be sufficient to permit review of the trial court's discretionary action. State v. Johnson, 445 N.W.2d 337, 343 (Iowa 1989).
Here, the court gave the following reasoning for imposing consecutive sentences:
The factors that I look at are these:
One is that the victims of the crime were young children.
Secondly, that they appear to me, both because of their age and their circumstances, to have been — at least one of them — of marginal intelligence. Certainly, they were both of marginal maturity.
Third, the position here that you occupied with them on that evening was one of a position of trust, which you violated by engaging in the criminal behavior that was engaged and which you were found guilty of.
And finally, as pointed out by the State, that there were, in fact, two separate offenses with two separate victims.
So for all these reasons, it is the order of the court that these sentences here shall run consecutive rather than concurrently.
We first conclude the district court's reasoning was sufficient to enable appellate review. State v. Delaney, 526 N.W.2d 170, 178 (Iowa Ct.App. 1994). The court's statement of reasons for the sentence imposed reflects the court's awareness that it had discretion to order either consecutive or concurrent sentences. We further conclude the statement of reasons indicates the court considered a variety of factors which justified the imposition of consecutive sentences in this case.