Background
A jury found Arthur Alonzo Snipes IV guilty of two counts of second-degree sexual abuse involving two children. Child A testified in Snipes’s presence, while child B testified by one-way closed-circuit television after the district court found that testifying in Snipes’s presence would cause trauma impairing B’s ability to communicate. Snipes opposed the State’s request for closed-circuit testimony on evidentiary grounds but did not raise a federal or state constitutional confrontation objection.
After trial but before sentencing, the Iowa Supreme Court held in State v. White that one-way closed-circuit testimony by a child witness violates the Iowa Constitution’s guarantee of face-to-face confrontation. Snipes then moved for a new trial. The district court granted a new trial on the count involving B but denied relief on the count involving A, finding B’s testimony had not improperly bolstered or tainted A’s testimony. Snipes appealed, and the State cross-appealed.
The Court’s Holding
The Iowa Court of Appeals held that Snipes failed to preserve his state constitutional confrontation claim because he did not raise it when the closed-circuit testimony was authorized or admitted. Raising the issue for the first time in a post-verdict motion for a new trial was too late, even though White was decided only after Snipes’s trial. The court therefore affirmed the denial of a new trial on Count I and reversed the grant of a new trial on Count II.
The court also rejected Snipes’s challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence on Count I. His argument depended on attacking A’s credibility, which was for the jury to assess, and A’s testimony provided substantial evidence from which a rational juror could find the alleged sex act beyond a reasonable doubt. The court affirmed the conviction and sentence on Count I and remanded for entry of judgment and sentence on Count II.
Key Takeaways
- A constitutional challenge to one-way closed-circuit testimony must be raised when the testimony is authorized or admitted; asserting it for the first time in a motion for a new trial does not preserve error.
- A later change in controlling law does not excuse the failure to preserve a constitutional argument that could have been raised at trial.
- An appellate sufficiency review does not permit the court to reassess witness credibility when the testimony could support the jury’s verdict.
Why It Matters
The decision underscores the practical consequences of Iowa’s error-preservation rules when governing constitutional law changes shortly after trial. Even though Snipes’s trial procedure was later held inconsistent with the Iowa Constitution, the unpreserved claim did not entitle him to appellate relief.
In a special concurrence, Judge Sandy argued that the case illustrates the need for plain-error review in Iowa, noting that existing Iowa doctrine left the court unable to consider an acknowledged constitutional defect that became clear before sentencing.