State of Iowa
v.
Michael William Tobin Jr.
Appellee
State of Iowa
Appellant
Michael William Tobin Jr.
Attorney for the Appellee
Louis S. Sloven, Assistant Attorney General
Attorney for the Appellant
Melinda J. Nye, Assistant Appellate Defender
Court of Appeals
Court of Appeals Opinion
Opinion Number:
Date Published:
Summary
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Butler County, Rustin Davenport, Judge. AFFIRMED IN PART, VACATED IN PART, AND REMANDED FOR RESENTENCING. Heard at oral argument by Tabor, C.J., and Ahlers and Langholz, JJ. Opinion by Tabor, C.J. (20 pages)
A jury convicted former police officer Michael Tobin Jr. of eleven counts of sexual exploitation of a minor in violation of Iowa Code section 728.12 (2021). Tobin appeals, arguing that the evidence could not support his nine convictions for promoting or possessing sexually explicit images of minors because he did so in the performance of his official duties. Short of that, he claims that six of the eight possession violations were not supported by substantial evidence. The State’s load-bearing evidence was the testimony of C.T., a minor then-Officer Tobin lured into a sexual relationship. Tobin also raises two evidentiary challenges. First, he argues that the district court should not have admitted testimony from a twenty-year-old woman about her contemporaneous affair with Tobin under Iowa Rule of Evidence 5.404(b). Second, he contends that the court misapplied rule 5.412 in excluding C.T.’s testimony that she was bisexual. Finally, Tobin contests his indeterminate fifteen-year sentence. OPINION HOLDS: We find no reversible error in the evidentiary rulings. On the first sufficiency claim, we find Tobin was not conducting official duties when he showed sexually explicit images to C.T. But the evidence was insufficient to prove he wrongly possessed six of those eight images. Thus, we vacate his possession convictions on counts four, five, six, seven, ten, and eleven and remand for resentencing on counts one, two, three, eight, and nine. Given this remedy, we need not address Tobin’s sentencing challenge.
