Full Opinion

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA _______________ No. 25-1511 Filed October 21, 2026 _______________ State of Iowa, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. Kinyata Monique Terrell, Defendant–Appellant. _______________ Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, The Honorable Paul D. Scott, Judge. _______________ AFFIRMED _______________ Jane M. White of Boles Witosky & Stewart, Des Moines, attorney for appellant. Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Sheryl Soich, Assistant Attorney General, attorneys for appellee. _______________ Considered without oral argument by Schumacher, P.J., and Langholz and Sandy, JJ. Opinion by Sandy, J. 1 SANDY, Judge. “You can’t stab people in the head,” the court stated while sentencing Kinyata Terrell. Terrell, while wielding a kitchen knife, had interrupted a brawl between high school girls, ultimately using the knife to slash a girl across the forehead. After being arrested and charged for the crime, Terrell entered an Alford plea1 to one count of participating in a riot and one count of assault with a dangerous weapon. She was sentenced to a suspended term of incarceration of five years. On appeal, Terrell argues the sentencing court abused its discretion in opting for a suspended sentence rather than a deferred judgment. Given the sentencing court’s reasoning on the record, we affirm the suspended sentence. BACKGROUND FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS After school got out on September 4, 2024, more than a dozen high school girls met in a parking lot to watch two girls settle an ongoing dispute with a fistfight. One of the fighters was accompanied by her mother, Kinyata Terrell. Rather than intervene and stop the fighting, Terrell encouraged her daughter to keep fighting and joined the fray with a large chef’s-style kitchen knife. As the fight reached its climax, the other fighter punched Terrell, but Terrell dealt the final blow by slashing the girl across the forehead. As the fight ended, Terrell and her daughter fled the scene while the victim was taken to the hospital. When police questioned the witnesses, they recovered several recordings of the fight which led them to investigate Terrell. When 1 See North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25, 37–38 (1970) (permitting a criminal defendant to enter a guilty plea without admitting guilt by acknowledging strong evidence of guilt and voluntarily, knowingly, and understandingly agreeing to allow the court to consider such strong evidence of guilt in accepting the plea). 2 questioned, Terrell initially minimized her involvement in the fight. She eventually admitted that she had a knife during the encounter. But when the police asked her to retrieve the knife, Terrell handed over a smaller steak knife, rather than the knife she used during the fight. After investigating further, the State charged Terrell with willful injury causing serious injury, participation in a riot, obstructing prosecution, and assault while displaying a dangerous weapon. Terrell then entered into a plea agreement in which she entered an Alford plea to participation in a riot and assault while displaying a dangerous weapon in exchange for the dismissal of the other counts. The agreement permitted Terrell to argue for a deferred judgment at sentencing, but the State intended to argue for a seven-year suspended sentence with three years of probation. The case proceeded to sentencing, where Terrell received a five-year suspended prison sentence. The court gave the following reasons on the record for the suspended sentence rather than a deferred judgment: So, Ms. Terrell, I’m sure you are aware that this Court owes a duty to the public just as much as I owe a duty to you in fashioning the appropriate sentence. That is one that is not only appropriate for you as an individual defendant, but one that is also appropriate for the crimes that you have pleaded guilty to. So in considering the appropriate sentence in this case, I have reviewed the presentence investigation report. I have considered the comments of the attorneys, and I have considered the comments of the defendant herself. I have considered the nature and circumstances of the offense, the history and characteristics of the defendant, including her age, her educational background, and her need for correctional treatment and/or potential for rehabilitation. I have taken into account the harm to the victim and the necessity for the protection of the community from further offenses by this 3 defendant, and I have considered all of the sentencing options that are available to me. So you’ve left me in kind of a bind here, Ms. Terrell, because what you told me here today is really in conflict with what the Minutes of Evidence say occurred, which . . . you adopted as part of your guilty plea. So the purposes of sentencing are commonly thought of as being two, that being rehabilitation and protection of the community from further offenses by you. I’m not really all that concerned about further offenses by you, and I’m not really all that concerned about rehabilitation, frankly. You know better than what you did here. But there’s a third backward-looking consideration, and that’s justice. That’s justice for what happened. Justice requires the Court to impose a sentence by looking back at the offense that occurred, which, as I said, I have taken into account the nature and circumstances of the offense. And the Trial Information just doesn’t comport with what you told me here today. And, frankly, when I read all this stuff before I walked through the door this morning, I wasn’t thinking about a deferred judgment. My debate in my head wasn’t between whether I gave you a deferred judgment or a suspended sentence. It was whether I sent you to prison or gave you a suspended sentence. You can’t stab people in the head. You can’t stab people, period, because kids are getting into a fight in the street and encouraging kids to continue on fighting, which appears to be borne out not only by the statements of the witnesses at the time, but also by a video that was taken at the scene of the crime during the offense. And, again, you’ve adopted these Minutes of Testimony, which tend to show that you attempted to minimize your involvement in this by producing a steak knife as opposed to the knife that was actually used, which was a chef’s kitchen knife, a chef-style kitchen knife. .... I already told you what my sentencing considerations are, but I can tell you that one of the main considerations here is the plea agreement that was entered into where the State was going to recommend, at a maximum, a suspended sentence. 4 Terrell now appeals, arguing the court abused its discretion by sentencing her to a suspended sentence rather than a deferred judgment. STANDARD OF REVIEW We review sentencing decisions for correction of errors at law and “will not reverse the decision of the district court absent an abuse of discretion or some defect in the sentencing procedure.” State v. Formaro, 638 N.W.2d 720, 724 (Iowa 2002). Because sentencing decisions are “cloaked with a strong presumption in [their] favor,” our job is not to second guess those decisions but to instead determine whether they are “unreasonable or based on untenable grounds.” Id. at 724-25. DISCUSSION Terrell argues the district court abused its discretion by not granting a deferred judgment because it “failed to appropriately consider several mitigating factors.” These mitigating factors include Terrell’s employment, her large family she needs to care for, and “that Terrell has a very minimal criminal history and presents very little risk to the community as confirmed in the [presentence investigation report].” These claims fail for multiple reasons. First, sentencing courts are not “required to specifically acknowledge each claim of mitigation urged by a defendant.” State v. Boltz, 542 N.W.2d 9, 11 (Iowa Ct. App. 1995). “Nor are they required to give reasons for rejecting a more lenient option.” State v. Maschmann, No. 22-0931, 2023 WL 3612375, at *2 (Iowa Ct. App. May 24, 2023). More importantly, the court did consider the mitigating factors urged by Terrell. In fashioning its sentence, the court specifically stated it “reviewed the presentence investigation report” and considered “the history and characteristics of the defendant.” The 5 presentence investigation report included Terrell’s criminal and employment history and detailed her familial situation. Terrell also mentioned these mitigating factors in her allocution, which the court considered in its sentence. So, no error occurred because the court did consider the mitigating factors Terrell claims on appeal. Terrell separately hints at an argument that the district court improperly relied on the nature of the offense as the basis for its sentence. This argument similarly fails. Given the reasons stated on the record, the court properly considered all the relevant factors and found the nature of the crime to be particularly important during sentencing. As we recognize, the sentencing court “enjoys the latitude to place greater importance on one sentencing consideration over others.” State v. Latcham, No. 10-1262, 2011 WL 1138569, at *3 (Iowa Ct. App. Mar. 30, 2011). The fact that the court found the nature of the offense significant in its reasoning does not invalidate the sentence. Instead, “the district court’s authority to weigh the competing factors to reach a sentencing decision is the essence of the discretion given to a sentencing judge.” State v. Phillips, 996 N.W.2d 419, 422 (Iowa Ct. App. 2023). In short, none of the alleged defects are abuses of discretion. Terrell’s appeal simply asks us to substitute the sentencing court’s decision with our own, which we cannot do. See State v. McCalley, 972 N.W.2d 672, 677–78 (Iowa 2022). Accordingly, we affirm the sentence imposed. AFFIRMED. 6