State of Iowa
v.
Charles P. Phipps
Appellee
State of Iowa
Appellant
Charles P. Phipps
Attorney for the Appellee
Thomas E. Bakke, Assistant Attorney General
Attorney for the Appellant
Maria L. Ruhtenberg, Assistant Appellate Defender
Court of Appeals
Court of Appeals Opinion
Opinion Number:
Date Published:
Summary
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Poweshiek County, Myron L. Gookin, Judge. AFFIRMED. Considered by Potterfield, P.J., and Bower and McDonald, JJ. Opinion by Potterfield, P.J. (10 pages)
Charles Phipps appeals from his conviction for assault while displaying a dangerous weapon. Phipps maintains (1) the trial court should have granted his motion for judgment of acquittal because assault while displaying a dangerous weapon is a specific-intent crime and the State did not provide substantial evidence regarding his specific intent, (2) trial counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to challenge the jury instruction that assault with a dangerous weapon is a general-intent crime, and (3) the court abused its discretion in denying his motion for mistrial after a witness’s testimony exceeded the minutes of evidence. OPINION HOLDS: Because Phipps failed to object to the jury instructions, his sufficiency-of-the-evidence argument is at odds with the law of the case, and we decline to consider it. His argument he received ineffective assistance from trial counsel fails, as he has not established the elements of ineffective assistance of counsel. And we cannot say the district court abused its discretion when it denied Phipps’s motion for mistrial but struck from the record the testimony Phipps challenged as outside of the minutes and instructed the jury not to consider that testimony. We affirm.
