Background
Randal Higgins and another man went to a rural Dallas County farmstead and backed their SUV to a brick outbuilding. The property owner and her son arrived after neighbors reported the unfamiliar vehicle. The son saw one man loading items into the SUV, while Higgins emerged from the building. The men left after an argument and physical altercation.
Police stopped the SUV about ten miles away and found two wooden boxes, an Anderson Erickson milk crate, a terracotta pot, and a metal washtub. A jury acquitted Higgins of robbery but convicted him of third-degree burglary and third-degree theft. The district court sentenced him as a habitual offender to concurrent indeterminate terms of up to fifteen years for burglary, including a three-year mandatory minimum, and two years for theft.
The Court’s Holding
The Iowa Court of Appeals affirmed. Substantial evidence supported the jury’s finding that the brick building was an occupied structure under the unobjected-to instruction. Testimony showed the owner used it to store antiques and other items, and the items recovered from Higgins’s SUV supported a finding that it was being used to store things of value at the time of the offense.
The court also rejected Higgins’s sentencing challenge. The sentencing judge properly considered Higgins’s pre-sentencing failure to accept responsibility, based on his written account in the presentence investigation and statements to police minimizing or denying wrongdoing. The record did not show that the judge punished Higgins for pleading not guilty or exercising his right to trial.
Key Takeaways
- An unobjected-to jury instruction supplies the law for appellate sufficiency review.
- A building need not be fully secured to qualify as a place used for storage under the applicable burglary instruction.
- A sentencing court may consider lack of remorse or failure to accept responsibility when supported by a defendant’s statements, rather than merely the decision to stand trial.
Why It Matters
The decision distinguishes a defendant’s protected choice to demand a jury trial from permissible sentencing consideration of statements minimizing criminal conduct. It also confirms that evidence of ongoing storage of even modestly valuable personal property can support the occupied-structure element of Iowa burglary.