IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA No. 19-0112 Filed June 17, 2020 STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff-Appellee, vs. JOSEPH MICHAEL QUEZADA SIERRA, Defendant-Appellant. ________________________________________________________________ Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Woodbury County, Patrick H. Tott, Judge. The defendant challenges the imposition of a five-year prison sentence following his violation of the terms of his probation. AFFIRMED Rees Conrad Douglas, Sioux City, for appellant. Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Sheryl Soich, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee. Considered by Doyle, P.J., Ahlers, J., and Potterfield, S.J.* *Senior judge assigned by order pursuant to Iowa Code section 602.9206 (2020). 2 POTTERFIELD, Senior Judge. In 2016, Joseph Quezada Sierra pled guilty to one count of possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance (marijuana), which is a class “D” felony.1 He was granted a deferred judgment and placed on probation for two years. The State filed an application for revocation of Quezada Sierra’s probation and, later, a supplemental violation report. At the January 2019 revocation hearing, Quezada Sierra admitted the reported violations, including that he was recently charged with and pled guilty to felony drug possession with intent to deliver (marijuana) in Nebraska. He was scheduled to be sentenced in the Nebraska case in February 2019. The district court revoked Quezada Sierra’s probation, entered judgment against him, and sentenced him to a term of imprisonment not to exceed five years. On appeal, Quezada Sierra maintains the court abused its discretion by considering an improper factor when deciding his sentence. Our review of the imposed sentence is for errors at law. State v. Thomas, 547 N.W.2d 223, 225 (Iowa 1996). When reviewing a district court’s sentencing decision, we will not reverse absent either an abuse of discretion or a defect in the sentencing procedure, such as the consideration of inappropriate matters. See State v. Formaro, 638 N.W.2d 720, 724 (Iowa 2002). 1 Iowa Code section 814.6(1)(a)(3) (2020) generally prohibits appeals from guilty pleas other than those for class “A” felonies or where a defendant establishes good cause. However, because judgment was entered against Quezada Sierra before July 1, 2019, when the amended code section took effect, his appeal is not prohibited. See State v. Gordon, ___ N.W.2d ___, ___, 2020 WL 2090108, at *4 (Iowa 2020) (“[T]he amendments do not apply retroactively to appeals from judgments entered before July 1, 2019.” (emphasis added)). 3 In imposing sentencing, the district court stated: [I]t’s clear that the incident in [Nebraska] for which [Quezada Sierra] has pled guilty and is awaiting sentencing was a serious matter in light of the quantity of marijuana that was involved, which hasn’t been disputed was over 114 pounds of marijuana, which was the same controlled substance that was involved in this case in 2016. While the court certainly understands the fact that youth may have played some role in this situation, youth tend to be impulsive, tend to make bad decisions going forward, so the court does give some consideration to [Quezada Sierra’s] youth in determining this matter; but the ...
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