Full Opinion

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA _______________ No. 25-0634 Filed October 21, 2026 _______________ State of Iowa, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. Billy Dewayne Frazier IV, Defendant–Appellant. _______________ Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Linn County, The Honorable Casey D. Jones, Judge. _______________ AFFIRMED _______________ Billy Dewayne Frazier IV, Cedar Rapids, self-represented appellant. Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Joshua Henry, Assistant Attorney General, attorneys for appellee. _______________ Considered without oral argument by Tabor, C.J., Langholz, J., and Bower, S.J. Opinion by Bower, S.J. 1 BOWER, Senior Judge. Billy Frazier IV appeals his conviction for operating while under the influence (OWI). He raises an assortment of constitutional violations. After considering each and finding no reversible error, we affirm. In March 2025, a jury found Frazier guilty of operating a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol. Frazier represented himself, but he chose not to engage in any of the representational duties during trial, “peacefully protest[ing] this unconstitutional trial” by not questioning witnesses, raising no objections, calling no witnesses of his own, and offering no evidence. Instead he repeatedly indicated he would “stand by [his] previous filings.” He then proceeded to file a plethora of pro se post-trial motions both in the district court and appellate court, including an objection to the supreme court’s transfer of the case to our court. Frazier raises numerous issues on appeal. His brief is sparse on actual arguments, composed primarily of scattered, unrelated, and unsupported assertions. We list his claims below as he included them in his summary of argument. We discuss case facts where relevant. To the extent we do not specifically address claims, they are either unidentifiable, not preserved, not sufficiently argued to address, or outside the scope of the appeal.1 1. Recusal. First, Frazier asserts he had been represented by the presiding judge in 2007 in federal court, so the judge should have been recused from his case. In his written motion, he accused the judge of “demonstrat[ing] clear favoritism toward the prosecution.” The court 1 “We generally will not do a party’s work for them, particularly if that requires us to assume a partisan role and undertake the party’s research and advocacy.” Ronnfeldt v. Shelby Cnty. Chris A. Myrtue Mem’l Hosp., 984 N.W.2d 418, 421 (Iowa 2023) (cleaned up). 2 considered the request at the final pretrial hearing and denied the motion, “for the reasons stated on the record.” We review decisions on a motion to recuse for an abuse of discretion, and the party seeking recusal “must show that the judge’s alleged bias and prejudice must stem from an extrajudicial source and result in an opinion on the merits on some basis other than what the judge learned from participation in the case.” State v. Pirie, 18 N.W.3d 238, 244 (Iowa 2025) (cleaned up). Although the pretrial hearing was reported, we do not have a transcript to review, so we cannot review the reasons. It is Frazier’s responsibility as the appellant “to ensure that the transcripts of any district court proceeding needed for resolution of the appeal are included in the record.” Iowa R. App. P. 6.803(1); see also In re Marriage of Sprague, 33 N.W.3d 589, 593 (Iowa 2026). “[T]he consequence of an appellant’s failure to provide a proper record on appeal is affirmance of the district court ruling so long as it is not fundamentally erroneous on its face.” Sprague, 33 N.W.2d at 594. At a hearing on the first day of trial, the court again addressed the claim, and the judge reiterated having no recollection of representing Frazier in federal court. Without any evidence the purported representation nearly twenty years ago in federal court had any bearing on this state case or affected the judge’s performance, we affirm the denial of the motion to recuse. See Pirie, 18 N.W.3d at 244–45. 2. Search and Seizure Claims. Next, Frazier claims his vehicle was already stopped before the 911 call, so the officers did not possess reasonable suspicion or probable cause for the search and seizure; therefore all evidence from the encounter should have been suppressed. We review the denial of a motion to suppress on constitutional grounds de novo. State v. Burns, 988 N.W.2d 352, 359 (Iowa 2023). We note for completeness that Frazier asked counsel to withdraw and represented himself at the suppression hearing. The State offered evidence at the suppression hearing including testimony from 3 two responding officers and body cam footage from one of the officers. Frazier asked to submit the 911 call from this incident as evidence, but the State objected based on foundation. The court decided it was not relevant based on the testimony provided, denying his request. In April 2024, officers received a report of a car which had left the roadway and was parked in a yard with a potentially intoxicated driver. When the first responding officer arrived, he parked several feet behind Frazier’s vehicle. He was told by a bystander Frazier didn’t hit anything but was having a “nervous breakdown,” and they had pulled Frazier’s keys, which they gave to another officer. Frazier’s front passenger wheel was over the curb with the back end of the vehicle blocking an alley. The driver’s door was open with Frazier behind the wheel. The officer described him as “out of sorts”: he appeared intoxicated, had trouble keeping his eyes open, mumbled, and struggled to make complete sentences. The video shows Frazier clearly exhibiting impaired behavior. The officer asked Frazier to step out of the vehicle, and he struggled to stand. Frazier indicated at one point he hit the curb and hit his head. The second officer began speaking with the bystanders. The bystanders indicated they saw Frazier drive off the road, and they went to check on him, worried because he was “slumped over.” The officer then went over to Frazier and the first officer, observing Frazier to be “extremely intoxicated” with an “overwhelming odor of [an] alcoholic beverage coming off his person.” The second officer attempted to have Frazier run through field sobriety testing, eventually transporting him to the county correctional center. At one point Frazier vomited, and the result “was very strong smelling of alcohol.” 4 Reasonable suspicion in an investigation “exists when articulable facts and all the circumstances confronting the officer at the time give rise to a reasonable belief that criminal activity may be afoot.” State v. McIver, 858 N.W.2d 699, 702 (Iowa 2015). Here, when the officer parked behind Frazier’s vehicle, it was obvious it was not parked appropriately with the driver’s door hanging open. When asked if he was okay, Frazier sounded and appeared impaired, and he smelled of alcohol. And the bystanders informed the officer they had felt the need to remove Frazier’s keys. Given the totality of the circumstances observable by the responding officers, see id. at 703, they had reasonable suspicion Frazier had been driving while under the influence of alcohol, and the officers did not violate his right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. Frazier also asserts claims touching on the removal of a knife and subsequent pat-down conducted by the officer. The district court observed, and we agree: Frazier’s knife and the pat-down have little-to-no relevance to his OWI conviction and were not produced as evidence.2 Even if somehow relevant, we would find the knife’s removal and the pat-down reasonable to ensure officer safety. See State v. Coleman, 890 N.W.2d 284, 300–01 (Iowa 2017) (explaining that where reasonable suspicion for detention exists, officers may engage in a pat-down search to ensure their safety). 3. Evidentiary Issues. Third, Frazier asserts “late-produced/altered evidence and chain-of-custody failures.” Frazier references multiple filings 2 The traditional remedy for an illegal search and seizure has been exclusion of the evidence obtained in the violating search and seizure. See generally Burns, 988 N.W.2d at 372–99 (McDonald, J., concurring; Oxley, J., dissenting; McDermott, J., dissenting) (examining the historical context and constitutional underpinnings of the exclusionary rule and application of the search and seizure provisions in the state and federal constitutions). 5 from the district court on a variety of evidentiary claims,3 but “[n]o authorities or argument may be incorporated into the brief by reference to another document.” Iowa R. App. P. 6.903(2)(a)(8)(3). We therefore limit our review to his arguments requesting forensic analysis and that the certified 911 transcript was added late to discovery “with inconsistent metadata.” On the forensic review question, at a mid-trial-motions hearing, the court asked Frazier to argue what he wanted done with the motion; Frazier “refer[red] to all [his] filings” with no further statement. The court told him that to challenge the 911 call as tampered, he “would have to put on some evidence.” Because Frazier did not put on any evidence, the motion was denied. Frazier had the opportunity to cross-examine the 911 dispatcher about the call and the copies provided to the county attorney’s office (and from there to Frazier), but he simply stated, “Stand by my previous filings. No further statements.” With his only “evidence” on this issue being his summary claims in motion practice, and given his failure to argue, cross- examine, or otherwise make a record at trial challenging the reliability of the call, we reject his claim the call was altered and his request for forensic review of the 911 call. See State v. Dewitt, 811 N.W.2d 460, 475 (Iowa 2012) (requiring “more than suspicion, speculation, or conjecture” for evidence). 4. Ineffective Assistance of Counsel. Frazier also asks us to review appointed counsels’ performance, find their assistance was ineffective, and preserve anything undecided for postconviction relief. Several of his written 3 These filings included: a request for forensic analysis of the body cam video “to assess authenticity, completeness and any evidence of tampering”; a claim of chain-of- custody irregularities for the body cam footage and Frazier’s car keys; a filing that asserted collusion and improper witness identification; a motion to prevent use of cropped body cam video and instead use “the complete, uninterrupted footage”; and a challenge to the 911 call “as tampered evidence.” 6 arguments fall within this umbrella. But since 2019, the appellate court cannot decide claims of ineffective assistance on direct appeal, and any such claims are preserved for postconviction-relief purposes by statute. Iowa Code § 814.7; see also State v. Treptow, 960 N.W.2d 98, 103 (Iowa 2021). Without authority to review the claims, we do not reach the merits of Frazier’s claims on this basis. See State v. Rutherford, 997 N.W.2d 142, 148 (Iowa 2023). 5. Jury Claim. Frazier alleges the jury may have applied the incorrect legal standard as to “actual physical control” and the destruction of jurors’ questions and notes on the question should result in reversal as preventing meaningful appellate review. As the State points out, Iowa Rule of Criminal Procedure 2.19(4)(e) expressly directs “[a]t the completion of the jury’s deliberations, the court shall destroy any notes taken during the trial.” The court’s compliance with the rules of criminal procedure is not a ground for reversal, and with no other reasoning provided, we reject this claim. Frazier also mentions in passing a discriminatory juror strike. First, Frazier refused to participate in jury selection, calling the whole trial “unconstitutional.” In addition, the juror in question was not struck—they were simply part of the pool that did not reach voir dire. Under these circumstances, the burden-shifting framework of Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 96–98 (1986), does not apply, and we reject this claim. 6. Due Process. Frazier also asserts due process claims from a claimed “denial of reasonable procedural accommodations.” While we are in favor of reasonable accommodations, his objections (determined through district court filings rather than argument in his brief ), were made months after the trial and conviction he appeals here. As the State observed, there is no district court ruling, so there is nothing for us to review. See Meier v. Senecaut, 641 N.W.2d 532, 537 (Iowa 2002) (“It is a fundamental doctrine of appellate 7 review that issues must ordinarily be both raised and decided by the district court before we will decide them on appeal.”). Even if preserved, we understand his complaint as either the clerk of court or our electronic document management system “alter[s] or renam[es] the titles of [Frazier’s] filings.” But despite his complaint, the documents themselves appear in the record precisely as he filed them; the title or classification is a function of creating a standardized document management system to ensure a complete record. We find this claim has no merit. 7. Cumulative Error. Finally, Frazier argues that even if each error alone was harmless, combined they result in denial of a fair trial and merit reversal. To the extent any error is preserved on this claim, because we find no individual errors, there is no cumulative error. See State v. Atwood, 602 N.W.2d 775, 785 (Iowa 1999). AFFIRMED. 8