Full Opinion

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA _______________ No. 25-1509 Filed September 2, 2026 _______________ State of Iowa, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. Tramontez Jermaine Lockett, Defendant–Appellant. _______________ Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Linn County, The Honorable Lars G. Anderson, Judge. _______________ AFFIRMED _______________ Raya Dimitrova of Carr Law Firm, P.L.C., Des Moines, attorney for appellant. Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and David Banta, Assistant Attorney General, attorneys for appellee. _______________ Considered without oral argument by Badding, P.J., Sandy, J., and Vogel, S.J. Opinion by Sandy, J. 1 SANDY, Judge. Tramontez Lockett drew Michael McCune out of his apartment building so that two other members of Lockett’s group could shoot him. Lockett did not fire a weapon, and he entered an Alford plea 1 to second- degree murder as an aider and abettor. At sentencing, the district court ordered him to pay $150,000 in restitution to McCune’s heirs under Iowa Code section 910.3B (2023). Lockett contends that assessment cannot stand because no factfinder ever determined that he caused McCune’s death. But causing the death of another is an element of the offense to which he pleaded, and our law punishes aiders and abettors as principals. We affirm. BACKGROUND FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS On the morning of February 18, 2023, sixteen-year-old Lockett and Devin Gardner stole a Toyota RAV4 in Cedar Rapids and drove it to the residence where Lockett was staying. Dante Irvin and Baynon Berry joined them there. According to the minutes of testimony, Irvin said he wanted to kill McCune, whom he suspected of shooting and paralyzing a friend, and the group settled on a plan: Lockett would arrange to meet McCune, and Irvin and Berry would kill him. Lockett contacted McCune through Snapchat, and McCune gave him his address at an apartment complex on F Avenue. The four drove the stolen vehicle there. Lockett, Irvin, and Berry got out and approached the building from the back; Gardner stayed with the car. Because Lockett’s phone had no data service and the stolen vehicle had wireless internet, Lockett and 1 Under North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25, 37–38 (1970), a defendant may enter a plea accepting a conviction while still maintaining their innocence on the understanding that the State’s evidence would likely persuade a jury of their guilt. 2 Gardner traded phones. Gardner monitored a video call from the car while Lockett, using Gardner’s phone, continued messaging McCune. Those messages drew McCune outside. When he emerged, Irvin and Berry shot him. He died of gunshot wounds to the head. Lockett did not fire a weapon. Gardner brought the car around, and Lockett drove the group from the scene. The State charged Lockett, who had been waived into adult court, with first-degree murder on an aiding-and-abetting theory, conspiracy to commit a forcible felony, first-degree theft, and going armed with intent. In January 2025, he entered Alford pleas to the lesser included offense of second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit a forcible felony, and pled guilty to first-degree theft. In exchange, the State agreed to dismiss the going- armed count and a companion case at sentencing. Sentencing was otherwise open. Two portions of the plea colloquy bear on this appeal. In advising Lockett of the consequences of his plea, the district court told him that because this was a death offense he would probably be ordered to pay $150,000 in restitution to the victim’s heirs, and that the payment was statutorily required. Defense counsel added that restitution to the victims would be joint and several with the three codefendants, and the court responded that it understood the obligation would be joint and several. The court then set out the elements of the murder count, explaining that the State would have to prove Lockett aided and abetted someone who shot McCune and McCune died as a result, but the State need not prove Lockett fired the shots. For the factual basis, Lockett agreed that the minutes would show the group’s discussion about finding McCune and shooting him; that the group then drove to McCune’s apartment building; that at least one codefendant 3 would testify Lockett helped locate McCune and drew him out of the building; that members of the group shot McCune when he came out, and he died of his injuries; that Lockett drove the group away afterward; and that he understood someone in the group intended to find and shoot McCune and that McCune could die as a result. He disputed being one of the shooters. The court found a sufficient factual basis and accepted the pleas. It then advised Lockett that any challenge to the plea required a timely motion in arrest of judgment, and that without one, he could still challenge his sentence but not his plea. Lockett did not file the motion. The district court held an individualized sentencing hearing in September 2025. The State sought fifty years on the murder conviction with a twenty-five-year mandatory minimum, along with $150,000 in restitution under section 910.3B. Lockett did not resist the $1,000 in victim pecuniary damages for funeral expenses, and he asked that the amount be imposed jointly and severally with his codefendants. He objected to the section 910.3B award. Relying generally on State v. Davison, 973 N.W.2d 276 (Iowa 2022), Lockett argued the assessment may not be imposed absent a jury finding that the defendant actually caused the death; citing State v. Izzolena, 609 N.W.2d 541, 550 (Iowa 2000), he argued the assessment reaches only an offender who acted with willful and wanton disregard for the rights of others. He emphasized that an Alford plea admits no facts, and he had never admitted causing McCune’s death. The district court sentenced Lockett to an indeterminate term of fifty years on the murder conviction with a ten-year mandatory minimum, and two concurrent ten-year terms on the remaining counts, to be served consecutively to the murder sentence. It ordered $1,000 in victim restitution and $150,000 under section 910.3B to McCune’s heirs at law, explaining that 4 the assessment was mandated on these facts because Lockett had admitted the evidence established that he aided and abetted McCune’s murder. In stating its reasons for the sentence, the court found that Lockett was the linchpin of the offense and that McCune would not have been killed had Lockett not been his friend and convinced him to come outside. The court did not address the request that restitution be imposed jointly and severally, and the sentencing order contains no such provision. Lockett appeals. He contends the district court erred in imposing section 910.3B restitution without proof that he caused McCune’s death and requests, in the alternative, that the award be made joint and several with his codefendants. The State responds that Lockett failed to preserve error and lacks good cause to appeal because he filed no motion in arrest of judgment and his claim is in substance an attack on the factual basis for his plea, and that on the merits a plea to a homicide felony establishes causation as a matter of law. STANDARD OF REVIEW Lockett challenges the district court’s imposition of $150,000 in victim restitution under Iowa Code section 910.3B. We review restitution orders for correction of errors at law. Davison, 973 N.W.2d at 280. Our review is de novo when a constitutional claim is at issue. Id. Because Lockett contends that imposing section 910.3B restitution absent a jury finding that he caused McCune’s death violates his Sixth Amendment rights, we review that constitutional claim de novo. DISCUSSION The State contends at the outset that Lockett failed to preserve error and lacks good cause to appeal because his claim is, in substance, an attack 5 on the factual basis of his guilty plea that he did not raise through a motion in arrest of judgment. Lockett responds that he is not challenging his plea but rather the legality of the restitution imposed at sentencing, and that errors in sentencing may be challenged on direct appeal even absent an objection below. Because Lockett challenges the restitution imposed at sentencing rather than the plea itself, good cause exists. See Iowa Code § 814.6(1)(a)(3); State v. Damme, 944 N.W.2d 98, 105 (Iowa 2020). The section 910.3B award is a term of his sentence, and the relief he seeks is vacatur of that award, not withdrawal of his plea. The fact that he must reason from the plea record to make the argument does not convert it into an attack on the plea. And because errors in sentencing may be raised on direct appeal without an objection below, error need not be preserved. See State v. Lathrop, 781 N.W.2d 288, 293 (Iowa 2010). Lockett argues that section 910.3B does not apply to him because he did not cause McCune’s death—Irvin and Berry fired the shots. Citing Davison, he contends that imposing section 910.3B restitution without a jury finding that his acts caused the death violates his Sixth Amendment rights. Section 910.3B restitution is punitive, and Davison holds that the Sixth Amendment prohibits its imposition without a finding that the defendant caused the victim’s death. Davison, 973 N.W.2d at 286. But Lockett misreads Davison. In Davison, the jury convicted the defendant only of assault causing serious injury and conspiracy—offenses that did not require any finding that he caused a death—so no such cause-of-death finding existed to support the award. Id. at 280. The logic of Davison is that a court cannot impose a punishment subject to a condition precedent absent a finding that the condition was met; 6 here, that condition was a necessary element of the crime to which Lockett pled guilty. See State v. Rosa, No. 25-0079, 2026 WL 221581, at *3 n.1 (Iowa Ct. App. Jan. 28, 2026). Lockett pled guilty to second-degree murder, a homicide felony. By definition, that offense requires an act causing the death of another person. Indeed, Davison itself observed that in every prior case reviewing a section 910.3B award, the defendant had been convicted of a homicide felony—a felony in which the factfinder had to find the defendant caused the death of another—and that awards against defendants not convicted of such a felony would remain rare. Davison, 973 N.W.2d at 288. The fact that the offense to which Lockett pled guilty required a finding that he caused the death of another distinguishes this case from Davison. Nor does it matter that Lockett pled guilty as an aider and abettor rather than as the shooter. Aiders and abettors are “charged, tried and punished as principals.” Iowa Code § 703.1. To the extent Lockett attempts to distinguish his culpability from the principals’ because he aided and abetted, our law does not differentiate between the two. See id.; accord State v. El-Amin, 952 N.W.2d 134, 139 (Iowa 2020). The Alford character of Lockett’s plea also does not change the analysis. An Alford plea still requires a factual basis to support the charge; the defendant admits that the State’s evidence, if believed, would permit a jury to find him guilty of the offense. State v. Chapman, 944 N.W.2d 864, 873 (Iowa 2020). Because causing the death of another is an element of second- degree murder, the factual basis supporting Lockett’s plea necessarily included causation. That distinguishes Lockett’s case from Chapman where the contested fact—sexual motivation—was not an element of the offense, so the Alford plea’s concessions could not supply it. Id. at 877. Here, causation is an element, and the plea established it. 7 We conclude that the district court did not err in imposing section 910.3B restitution, because causing the victim’s death was a necessary component of Lockett’s conviction for aiding and abetting second- degree murder. Lockett cannot establish that the court acted illegally. We affirm. AFFIRMED. 8