Full Opinion

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA _______________ No. 25-2013 Filed October 7, 2026 _______________ State of Iowa, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. Timothy Lee Gibson, Sr., Defendant–Appellant. _______________ Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, The Honorable Paul D. Scott, Judge. _______________ AFFIRMED _______________ Martha J. Lucey, State Appellate Defender, and Shellie L. Knipfer, Assistant Appellate Defender, attorneys for appellant. Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Louis S. Sloven, Assistant Attorney General, attorneys for appellee. _______________ Considered without oral argument by Ahlers, P.J., and Chicchelly and Langholz, JJ. Opinion by Langholz, J. 1 LANGHOLZ, Judge. Timothy Gibson, Sr. entered Alford pleas1 to two counts of lascivious acts with a child for performing sexual acts on, and with, a six- or seven-year- old girl while he was dating her mother. See Iowa Code § 709.8(1)(a)–(b) (2023). At sentencing, the State urged the district court to impose consecutive ten-year prison sentences for a total of twenty years in prison. Gibson asked the court to suspend the prison sentences and place him on probation—highlighting mainly his limited criminal history, his age of sixty- six, his stage four prostate cancer diagnosis, and low risk-assessment scores in his presentence-investigation report (“PSI”). The district court imposed the ten-year prison sentences but ordered them to run concurrently rather than consecutively—explaining that it did so because of Gibson’s health. And Gibson now appeals, arguing that the court abused its discretion in selecting those sentences because it weighed Gibson’s comment in the PSI that the “crime didn’t happen” as an aggravating factor showing a failure to accept responsibility and gave too little weight to the mitigating factors. But the district court did not abuse its considerable sentencing discretion in considering Gibson’s failure to accept responsibility or weighing all the others factors to select the sentence. So we affirm Gibson’s sentence. We review a district court’s discretionary sentencing decisions, including the exercise of its discretion whether to suspend a sentence, for an abuse of discretion. See State v. Formaro, 638 N.W.2d 720, 724 (Iowa 2002). This deferential standard of review recognizes that the court’s decision “to impose a particular sentence within the statutory limits is cloaked with a strong presumption in its favor.” Id. And even when the court would have been justified in imposing the sentence sought by the defendant, “our task on 1 See North Carolina v. Alford, 400 U.S. 25, 37 (1970). 2 appeal is not to second guess the decision made by the district court, but to determine if it was unreasonable or based on untenable grounds.” Id. at 725. So it is not enough that the defendant disagrees with the court’s weighing of the sentencing factors and the sentence ultimately selected. See State v. Gordon, 998 N.W.2d 859, 863 (Iowa 2023). At sentencing, the district court thoroughly explained its reasons for selecting Gibson’s concurrent prison sentences rather than suspending them (as Gibson asked) or imposing them consecutively (as the State asked): Mr. Gibson, as you may understand, 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 a sentence that is not only appropriate for you as an individual defendant, but one that is also appropriate for the crime you have pleaded guilty to. So in determining the appropriate sentence, I have considered the presentence investigation report, I have considered the arguments of counsel, and I have considered the victim impact statements that have been made here today. I have considered the nature and circumstances of . . . the offenses. I have considered your age, your history and characteristics, your need for medical care as well as other correctional treatment and your potential for rehabilitation. I have taken into account the harm to the victim in this case and the necessity for the protection of the community from further offenses by you, and I have considered all of the sentencing options that are available to me. This is a remarkably difficult case, and the reason I say that is because of the tragic and horrific offenses and your personal characteristics. So those two things juxtaposed make this very difficult. And, to put it another way, when this Court looks at sentencing, there are really three things that this Court looks at: Of course, the societal goals of rehabilitation and protection of the community, but there’s another thing that this Court looks at, and it is backward-looking, and that 3 is the harm that’s been caused, the crime, justice that needs to be done in each individual case. That’s why this is so difficult for me, because there is no doubt that by your personal characteristics, if your health were not involved here, this would be a very easy sentencing. And I am more than sympathetic in regard to your health issues. I struggle with whether a term of incarceration . . . is going to have any effect of rehabilitation. Obviously, isolating you from society will protect the community from further offenses by you. I am also going to note that . . . I am not taking into account the fact that you didn’t allocute here today. That is not a consideration because you do have the right not to say anything, so I am not considering that. But what I am taking into account, and I think the thing that is tipping this scale for me, is the fact that in your version of the offense, rather than just not say anything at all, rather than leave that page blank, you wrote the crime didn’t happen. I understand what an Alford plea is all about, and it is, to a certain extent, if not 100 percent, that I am not admitting . . . that I committed a crime. But to say that the crime didn’t happen at all rather than remain silent, to me, is a total lack of acceptance of responsibility. The court also further explained its decisions to run the sentences concurrently and to not suspend them: I’m running those sentences concurrent with each other not to split the baby either. I’m running them concurrently because of your health situation. I am not suspending these sentences, though, because I appreciate the facts of your health situation, I appreciated that you’re going through some pretty debilitating medical conditions, but it does not, in any way, lighten the load that the victim of your crime is going to have to carry with her for the remainder of her life, the seriousness of your offenses. And so, again, that’s why I bring up the fact that the consideration of sentencing isn’t just the societal goals of rehabilitation and protection of the community, but they also include justice in a particular case. 4 These reasons are not untenable or unreasonable. They are based on proper sentencing factors. See Iowa Code § 901.5 (requiring the sentencing court to consider, “[a]fter receiving and examining all pertinent information, including the presentence investigation report and victim impact statements,” which authorized sentence “will provide maximum opportunity for the rehabilitation of the defendant, and for the protection of the community from further offenses by the defendant and others”). They show careful reasoning by the district court, including consideration of mitigating factors that made the decision “difficult.” And it matters not that Gibson would have preferred the court to “have weighed the various factors differently,” Gordon, 998 N.W.2d at 863, or to have expressly mentioned more factors, see State v. Boltz, 542 N.W.2d 9, 11 (Iowa Ct. App. 1995). Still, Gibson argues that it was “unfair” for the district court to rely on his comment in the PSI that the “crime didn’t happen” because the court misinterpreted the comment as denying that the child was abused at all and because the comment did not indicate a failure to accept responsibility in the context of Gibson’s Alford plea. We disagree on both points. First, Gibson does not deny that his comment was a statement that “he did not abuse” the child. He only takes issue with an interpretation of his comment as “saying the child was never abused.” But we do not understand that to be the district court’s interpretation of Gibson’s comment. The court too was focused on Gibson’s assertion that the crime for which he was convicted did not happen—in other words, that he did not commit the crime—which is why the court continued on to reason that his comment showed “a total lack of acceptance of responsibility.” And second, Gibson’s failure to accept responsibility, as shown by his affirmative comment that the “crime didn’t happen,” was a proper 5 sentencing consideration. A defendant who enters an Alford plea is “subject to the same assessment for purposes of sentencing as are other defendants, including an evaluation of the factors relevant to their need for rehabilitation and their likelihood to reoffend.” State v. Knight, 701 N.W.2d 83, 89 (Iowa 2005). This includes the defendant’s lack of remorse or, in other words, his lack of acceptance of responsibility. See id. (holding that a “defendant entering an Alford plea amidst claims of innocence is no different than a defendant found guilty amidst claims of innocence” and so, a “lack of remorse is a pertinent sentencing factor in both situations”). 2 So just as a defendant’s continued assertions of innocence rather than accepting responsibility after being convicted by a jury can be considered as an aggravating factor, so too can Gibson’s assertion here after an Alford plea. See id. at 88 (“Alford does not require that a court accept a guilty plea from a defendant while simultaneously treating the defendant as innocent for purposes of sentencing.” (cleaned up)). True, the court put much weight on this factor—saying that it was “tipping this scale.” But putting “considerable emphasis” on a factor at sentencing is not an abuse of discretion so long as a court also “consider[s] other factors pertinent to sentencing.” State v. Leckington, 713 N.W.2d 208, 216–17 (Iowa 2006). And again, the court considered many factors here. Seeing no abuse of discretion in the district court’s exercise of its considerable sentencing judgment, we thus affirm Gibson’s sentence. AFFIRMED. 2 Gibson argues that remorse and acceptance of responsibility are different. But whatever the label, Knight allows a sentencing court to consider a defendant’s continued denial of the crime after conviction. See Knight, 701 N.W.2d at 88–89. 6