State of Iowa v. Mikala Celeste Webster ( 2019 )

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 18-1379
Filed March 6, 2019
STATE OF IOWA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
vs.
MIKALA CELESTE WEBSTER,
Defendant-Appellant.
________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Woodbury County, Timothy T.
Jarman, District Associate Judge.
Mikala Webster appeals her conviction of operating while intoxicated.
AFFIRMED.
Priscilla E. Forsyth, Sioux City, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Richard J. Bennett, Special
Counsel, for appellee.
Considered by Doyle, P.J., and Mullins and McDonald, JJ.
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MULLINS, Judge.
Mikala Webster appeals her conviction of operating while intoxicated (OWI).
She argues the district court erred in denying her motion to dismiss on statute-of-
limitations grounds. Specifically, she argues Iowa Code section 802.6(1) (2013)
violates the due process and equal protection clauses of the state and federal
constitutions “because it no longer requires a person to have the intent to flee
prosecution when leaving the state for the statute of limitations to be tolled.” See
2002 Iowa Acts ch. 1116, § 1. Appellate review of constitutionally-based claims is
de novo. State v. Neiderbach, 837 N.W.2d 180, 190 (Iowa 2013).
The criminal charge resulted from Webster’s acts in June 2013. Webster
was charged by trial information with OWI in October 2017. Webster filed a motion
to dismiss citing the State’s failure to charge her within the three-year statute of
limitations contained in Iowa Code section 802.3. Webster made no claim of a
constitutional violation in her motion to dismiss. In its resistance, the State noted
Webster was “not publicly resident within the state” from the time of the underlying
acts through the filing of the trial information and, as such, the statute of limitations
was tolled by Iowa Code section 802.6(1). Webster filed a supplement to her
motion in which she conceded her absence from the state but again did not
articulate a constitutional claim. No constitutional argument was made at the
subsequent hearing on the motion. The district court ultimately denied the motion
to dismiss, concluding section 802.6(1) applied to toll the statute of limitations.
Upon our de novo review, we agree with the State that Webster has failed
to preserve error on her constitutional claims, as they were not raised in nor
decided by the district court. See Meier v. Senecaut, 641 N.W.2d 532, 537 (Iowa
3
2002) (“It is a fundamental doctrine of appellate review that issues must ordinarily
be both raised and decided by the district court before we will decide them on
appeal.”); see also State v. Mulvany, 600 N.W.2d 291, 293 (Iowa 1999) (“[W]e
require error preservation even on constitutional issues.”). Webster makes no
claim counsel rendered ineffective assistance in failing to preserve error. See
State v. Harris, 919 N.W.2d 753, 754 (Iowa 2018) (“When counsel fails to preserve
error at trial, a defendant can have the matter reviewed as an ineffective-
assistance-of-counsel claim.”).
We will not consider Webster’s arguments for the first time on appeal. We
affirm the denial of her motion to dismiss and her conviction.
AFFIRMED.