The Iowa Court of Appeals selects certain opinions for publication in the Northwestern Reporter. In July, the Court of Appeals selected three opinions for publication. Following are summaries of those opinions.

In Re the Marriage of Zhenzhen Wang and Shengyi Ye, No. 24 -0420

Opinion date: March 5, 2025

On appeal from Polk County District Court

Issue: Did the Polk County District Court correctly limit the rights of a father living in China to visitations with his children living in the United States?

Zhenzhen Wang, who lives in Iowa, was awarded full custody of her two children in a divorce decree dissolving her marriage with Shengyi Ye. Shengyi, who lives in China, was granted visitation rights with the children only in the United States. Shengyi appealed, seeking joint custody and visitations in China. The Iowa Court of Appeals affirmed the district court.

In its decision, the Court of Appeals held that the restriction on international travel and sole custody were in the children’s best interests, based in part on the risk the children could become stranded in China, which has not recognized an international treaty regarding child abductions. The decision was written by Court of Appeals Judge Samuel Langholz, joined by Court of Appeals Judges Sharon Soorholtz Greer and John Sandy.

The 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction establishes “legal rights and procedures for the prompt return of children who have been wrongfully removed from one signatory nation or wrongfully retained in another,” the Court said. China is not a signatory to the Hague Convention, and without that treaty there is no remedy for a parent whose child is wrongly held in a nonsignatory country, the Court said.

While some states have adopted bright-line travel limitations to nations not parties to the Hague Convention, the Court said Iowa has favored considering children’s safety and best interests with decisions often turning on a “demonstrated risk of abduction or nonreturn of the children.”

The Court observed that Shengyi had previously prevented the children and Zhenzhen from returning to the United States from China for several months by refusing to return their travel documents, which he had taken from them. And the children are still young, with limited abilities to advocate for themselves should they be held beyond their father’s allotted visitation. Meanwhile, Shengyi has long summer breaks from his work as a professor that permit him to travel to the United States for visitations.

As for the question of custody, the Court agreed with the district court that awarding sole legal custody to their mother is in the children’s best interests.

“Shengyi’s conduct during the China trip was detrimental not just to Zhenzhen, but to his children as well,” Judge Langholz wrote. The father abandoned Zhenzhen and the children on the side of the road, leaving them to find their own way home, never visited them during the six or seven months they were kept in China, and repeatedly disparaged Zhenzhen as a “criminal” who “kidnapped them” and “will be in jail soon.”

“None of those actions were in the children’s best interests,” Judge Langholz wrote.

State v. Montgomery, No. 24-0187

Opinion date: May 7, 2025

On appeal from Black Hawk County District Court

Issues: Did a district court properly permit introduction of prior assault charges in a defendant’s trial on charges of burglary and assault? Was there sufficient evidence for his conviction?

Trashon Montgomery was convicted by a Black Hawk County jury of first-degree burglary and willful injury causing serious injury. The Court of Appeals affirmed the district court in a decision written by Senior Court of Appeals Judge Michael Mullins, joined by Chief Court of Appeals Judge Mary Tabor and Court of Appeals Judge Julie Schumacher.

Montgomery entered the apartment of T.J., with whom he had earlier had a relationship, and physically assaulted her. He was charged with first-degree burglary and willful injury causing serious injury, including a broken wrist and lacerations on T.J.’s face.

At trial, the State was allowed to introduce evidence of two previous incidents, one that left T.J. with a broken jaw and the other in which he entered her apartment without permission and ripped a braid out of her hair. Montgomery pleaded guilty to willful injury in the first incident; burglary and assault charges on the second incident were pending at the time this case was tried.

Montgomery argued on appeal the district court erred in allowing testimony about the prior assaults; in the alternative, he argued the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction.

On the question of allowing evidence of prior assaults, the Court noted that while Iowa’s rules of evidence do not permit admission of a prior crime or other bad act to prove a person’s character and “propensity” to act according to that character, the rule makes certain exceptions.

“Evidence of a prior bad act is not always propensity evidence,” Judge Mullins wrote. “Proof of a prior wrong ‘may be admissible for another purpose such as proving motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, absence of mistake, or lack of accident,’” he added, quoting Iowa Rules of Evidence.

The State argued Montgomery’s prior assaults substantiated his criminal intent. Montgomery claimed he entered the apartment at T.J’s invitation or with her standing implied consent, and he argued there was no evidence he entered with intent to commit an assault. Thus, the Court said, testimony that Montgomery had assaulted T.J. in the past, including one occasion when he entered her home without permission, was relevant to a contested issue at trial.

“The State was entitled to introduce this evidence of similar past offenses to support its allegation that Montgomery entered the apartment without permission and with the intent to assault T.J.,” Judge Mullins wrote, and any prejudicial effect of that testimony was substantially outweighed by its value in substantiating Montgomery’s intent.

As for Montgomery’s alternative challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence to support the jury’s verdict on the burglary and assault charges, the Court said the State introduced substantial evidence that Montgomery entered T.J.’s apartment without permission and that his assault caused “serious injury.” Thus, the Court concluded the evidence was sufficient to convict Montgomery on both charges.

State v. Yost, No. 23 -1486

Opinion date: April 9, 2025

On appeal from Pottawattamie County District Court

Issues: Was a charge of continuous sexual abuse of a child unconstitutional because some of the alleged abuse may have occurred years before the statute was enacted? And, would the State’s proposed amendment to the charge have violated the defendant’s right to a speedy indictment?

Zachary Yost was charged with one count of continuous sexual abuse of a child, one count of second-degree sexual abuse, and one count of incest in Pottawattamie County District Court.

The State moved to amend the charge of continuous sexual abuse to lesser-included charges after Yost argued that the charge violated his constitutional ex post facto rights because some of the alleged abuse incidents may have occurred years before the continuous abuse statute (Iowa Code section 709.23) was enacted. Yost also argued the State’s proposed amendment of the charge, coming more than a year after his initial appearance, would violate his statutory right to a speedy indictment.

The district court agreed with Yost on both issues and dismissed the case. The State appealed to the Iowa Supreme Court, which transferred the case to the Iowa Court of Appeals.

In its decision, written by Court of Appeals Judge John Sandy and joined by appellate Judges Sharon Soorholtz Greer and Samuel Langholz, the Court of Appeals reversed and remanded the case to the district court.

Because the case could be decided without ruling on the constitutional ex post facto issue, the Court said it would “leave for another day the resolution of whether the State may prosecute continuous criminal conduct that straddles a criminal statute’s enactment date.”

On the question of whether the State could amend the trial information, which is the equivalent of an indictment, the Court agreed with the State that the amended charge was proper and would not prejudice Yost’s rights.

Iowa’s Rules of Criminal Procedure permit amendment of a trial information provided the defendant’s rights are not prejudiced and that the amendment is not a “wholly new and different” charge with different or additional elements and which would increase the potential punishment.

The State’s proposal to amend the trial information to three lesser-included offenses of second-degree sexual abuse did not constitute a wholly new or different offense, the Court concluded, nor would Yost have suffered prejudice as a result of the proposed amendments.

“Because Yost was facing a charge of continuing sexual abuse, he was on notice the State had to establish at least three separate acts of sexual abuse,” Judge Sandy wrote. “Changing the charge from one count of continuous sexual to three separate counts of second-degree sexual abuse would have brought no undue surprise or a need to change trial strategy.”

As for Yost’s argument that amending the trial information would violate his right to an indictment within 45 days of his initial appearance, the Court again agreed with the State that, because it properly indicted Yost for continuous sexual abuse within 45 days, it necessarily also indicted him on the lesser-included offenses “baked in” to the greater offense.

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