Full Opinion

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA _______________ No. 25-1706 Filed September 2, 2026 _______________ State of Iowa, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. Jeremy Lee McAtee, Defendant–Appellant. _______________ Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Linn County, The Honorable Casey D. Jones, Judge. _______________ AFFIRMED _______________ Siobhan Briley of Ellis & Winters LLP, Raleigh, North Carolina, attorney for appellant. Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Joshua Henry, Assistant Attorney General, attorneys for appellee. _______________ Considered without oral argument by Greer, P.J., and Buller and Langholz, JJ. Opinion by Greer, P.J. 1 GREER, Presiding Judge. Jeremy McAtee appeals his sentence, zeroing in on comments made by the court during the sentencing hearing. He asserts that the court abused its discretion by relying on improper considerations at his sentencing. The State disagrees, arguing McAtee could not show there was any personal bias, and instead, the court made a decision that was individualized and properly personal to McAtee’s situation as it was allowed to do. After reviewing the record, we find the court properly exercised its discretion when imposing McAtee’s sentence. We affirm the sentence imposed. In August 2025, McAtee pled guilty to three separate charges of driving while barred as a habitual offender, all aggravated misdemeanors.1 The district court accepted McAtee’s plea to the three charges, which also allowed for dismissal of companion traffic charges. The matter was set for a sentencing hearing. The plea agreement allowed each side to argue their position on the appropriate sentence. The State recommended concurrent jail terms of 180 days on each separate charge. McAtee asked for suspended sentences and that he be placed on unsupervised probation. He urged that he had made progress toward obtaining his temporary restricted license, had employment, and was a single parent with family responsibilities. The sentencing court followed the State’s recommendation, which also allowed for work-release privileges. McAtee was sentenced to 180 days in jail on each offense, with the sentences to run concurrently. The sentencing court’s order listed reasons for the sentence, including McAtee’s “age, family circumstances, education, prior criminal record, the facts and circumstance[s] of this offense, and the belief that this sentence will 1 The first case involved an incident on August 20, 2024, and the next two charges occurred on April 10 and 25, 2025. 2 provide the greatest benefit to [him] and the community.” It also “considered recommendations by counsel, including the State, [McAtee’s] history of convictions for similar offenses, [his] family obligations and [his] employment.” McAtee does not criticize any of the statements in the order. Instead, he narrows his abuse-of-discretion challenge to three statements the court made at the sentencing hearing. The first statement was that probation was not “even on the radar right now because the days of probation for these things have long since sailed.” Next, the court opined that McAtee appeared to be in a “pattern of just completely ignoring the Department of Transportation . . . [and] courts, and pretty much just doing what [he] want[ed] to do.” Finally, McAtee takes issue with the court’s statement that it had “little sympathy” for him. “A sentencing court’s decision to impose a specific sentence that falls within the statutory limits ʻis cloaked with a strong presumption in its favor, and will only be overturned for an abuse of discretion or the consideration of inappropriate matters.’” State v. Schooley, 13 N.W.3d 608, 616 (Iowa 2024) (quoting State v. Damme, 944 N.W.2d 98, 105–06 (Iowa 2020)). “An abuse of discretion occurs when the court exercises its discretion on grounds or for reasons that are clearly untenable or unreasonable.” State v. McCalley, 972 N.W.2d 672, 676 (Iowa 2022) (citation omitted). Although we afford the sentencing court “a significant amount of latitude,” resentencing is required if the sentencing court relied upon “an improper consideration, even if it was merely a secondary consideration.” State v. Fetner, 959 N.W.2d 129, 133–34 (Iowa 2021) (cleaned up). Given that McAtee’s sentence falls within the statutory limits, he is charged with overcoming the strong presumption in favor of the sentence 3 “by affirmatively demonstrating the court relied on an improper factor or based its decision on clearly untenable grounds.” State v. Pirie, 18 N.W.3d 238, 249 (Iowa 2025) (cleaned up). McAtee’s arguments focus on his disagreement with the statements of the court during the sentencing hearing and the severity of his sentence. As the State argued, “[w]e realize this is an elevated jail recommendation, but the reasoning behind that is that Mr. McAtee has ten previous driving while barred convictions in the 2000s to currently and these three will make that total thirteen.” Following McAtee’s allocution where he discussed the positive moves he was undertaking, the sentencing court stated: So Mr. McAtee the reality is that, you know, probation isn’t even on the radar right now because the days of probation for these things have long since sailed. If actual jail time hasn’t prevented you from continuing to drive while barred, there’s really no way that probation is. I’m very glad to see that you have taken the steps that you have to work towards getting your TRL, your temporary restricted license. I trust that you’ll go out there and get that test taken and hopefully pass and do everything to get it all in order so you do have your temporary restricted license for work or whatever other purposes that they allow it for. That’s fantastic. Hopefully that will put an end to this pattern of just completely ignoring the Department of Transportation, courts, and pretty much just doing what you want to do. On our review, this analysis is a function of judicial discretion in sentencing. The court’s statements simply address the reality of McAtee’s situation, recognizing that a pattern of behavior, sanctioned in the past, would require more punishment than what probation might provide. Shortly after this discussion, the sentencing court continued by noting it “touched on some of [its] reasons for the sentence,” and the sentence was “based on the recommendations of counsel, State, the statements made by [McAtee], the vast prior record for similar offenses, and the need to hopefully make sure 4 that these are the last driving while barreds, to protect the community.” And the court added that it would also allow McAtee “to do work release so he can continue to meet his family’s obligations.” As for the court’s comment about having “little sympathy for [McAtee] on that,” the “that” was the court’s statement that McAtee was continuing “to drive for all of these years, knowing that [he is] barred, and again, it’s a choice [he] made.” (Emphasis added). We find that none of the sentencing court’s stated reasoning or statements are unreasonable given McAtee’s criminal history and lack of accountability for change until just before the sentencing. McAtee’s sentences were reasonable and the reasons given for the imposition of jail time were not untenable. See State v. Bragg, 388 N.W.2d 187, 191 (Iowa Ct. App. 1986) (noting that although the court’s language “was strong and specific,” our appellate courts will not require judges to only speak in general, unspecific phrases when stating the reasons for the sentence). We affirm the sentence imposed. AFFIRMED. 5