Background
A jury convicted Jaret Peck of second-degree murder for the Christmas Eve 2021 beating death of Terrance Woodard. Aaron Adams testified that Peck accompanied him to meet Woodard, suggested robbing him, and then repeatedly punched and stomped Woodard in an apartment-building stairwell.
The State offered corroborating evidence, including a neighbor who heard someone yell for “Jaret” to stop, another witness who saw Peck leave the scene, injuries to Peck’s hands, and Woodard’s DNA on a hoodie Peck discarded while fleeing police. The district court sentenced Peck to an indeterminate fifty-year term with a seventy-percent mandatory minimum.
The Court’s Holding
The court affirmed. Substantial evidence supported the jury’s finding that Peck was Woodard’s assailant. Although Peck attacked Adams’s credibility and argued Adams was the more likely perpetrator, witness credibility was for the jury, and Adams’s account was substantially corroborated.
The court also rejected Peck’s challenge to instructions stating that jurors’ “sole duty is to find the truth and do justice.” It recognized a legitimate concern about describing that as the jury’s sole duty, but held that the instructions as a whole repeatedly and correctly placed the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt burden on the State. There was no reversible instructional error.
Finally, Peck did not preserve his Iowa Rule of Evidence 5.404(b) claim against admission of his statement that he was “typically violent with people sometimes.” His trial objection concerned the statement being taken out of context, not improper prior-bad-acts evidence.
Key Takeaways
- An accomplice or eyewitness account may support a conviction when the jury credits it and other evidence corroborates it.
- Jury instructions are evaluated as a whole; isolated “truth and justice” language did not alter the State’s burden here.
- An evidentiary objection must identify the legal ground advanced on appeal to preserve error.
Why It Matters
The decision underscores that appellate courts will not reweigh credibility disputes resolved by a jury when the record contains substantial corroborating evidence. It also warns defense counsel to make a specific evidentiary objection at trial when challenging a defendant’s statement as prior-bad-acts evidence.