State of Iowa v. Raymond Leo Showers

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 23-0390
Filed May 22, 2024

STATE OF IOWA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,

vs.

RAYMOND LEO SHOWERS,
Defendant-Appellant.
________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Des Moines County, Michael J.

Schilling, Judge.

A defendant appeals his conviction for third-degree sexual abuse,

challenging the sufficiency of the evidence supporting the conviction. AFFIRMED.

Martha J. Lucey, State Appellate Defender, and Mary K. Conroy, Assistant

Appellate Defender, for appellant.

Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Genevieve Reinkoester, Assistant

Attorney General, for appellee.

Considered by Bower, C.J., and Greer and Chicchelly, JJ.
2

GREER, Judge.

In this case, the State asks that “we overrule State v. Smith, 508

N.W.2d 101 (Iowa Ct. App. 1993), which may require the Court to sit en banc.” We

do not take that path today but emphasize Smith sits as an “outlier” case that does

not impact our decision here. See State v. Mathis, 971 N.W.2d 514, 518 (Iowa

2022) (“[Smith] has been criticized in the commentary, and it has not been followed

in any sexual abuse case in Iowa since.”). In the present case, the State charged

Raymond Showers via trial information with second-degree sexual abuse, a class

“B” felony, in violation of Iowa Code sections 709.1 and 709.3(1)(a) (2021). In the

trial information, the State accused Showers of sexually abusing the victim, L.P.,

on or about December 1, 2021. L.P. was sixteen years old in 2021. Prior to trial,

L.P. gave a deposition.1 After the deposition, the State moved to amend the trial

information to accuse Showers of sexually abusing L.P. between November 26

and December 31, 2021. The district court granted the motion.

A jury heard the case in January 2023, and L.P. testified. On direct

examination, she stated that around October or November of 2021 she came to

stay with a friend in Burlington because she “was on drugs at the time and it was—

I was having a rough time at my dad’s house.” L.P. estimated that she moved in

with a different friend who ran a “drug house” about a month later. She reasoned

that because she wasn’t carrying a calendar, she wasn’t sure of the exact month

she moved. Sometime after moving in with that second friend, she met Showers.

L.P. believed that this meeting happened after Thanksgiving. As for details

1 The deposition is not part of our record on appeal.
3

remembered, L.P. described Showers’s vehicle—a blue Dodge Ram—and could

list the address of the house belonging to Showers’s mother, Loretta Lovitt, where

Showers was living. She also described in detail the layout of the house. Showers

offered and the court admitted photographs of the house and a map of its first floor,

which matched L.P.’s descriptions of the locations of the rooms in the house.

L.P. explained that she was smoking methamphetamine and marijuana and

drinking hard alcohol from the time she arrived at Lovitt’s house. On the second

day at Lovitt’s house, L.P. remembered drinking coffee and also eating ice cream

that Showers gave her, which tasted funny and made her feel dizzy. After she

passed out sometime in the afternoon on that second day there, she awoke to

Showers in his bed with her; L.P. was wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt while

Showers was in just his underwear. L.P. testified that Showers removed her pants

and underwear and began touching her in her vaginal area. L.P. tried to get

Showers off of her and told him to stop; Showers said nothing. He placed “his

fingers inside of” her and then inserted his penis into her vagina. After a couple

minutes, Showers ejaculated. Showers then told L.P. to get in the shower and got

in the shower with her. L.P. stated that she “felt nasty. I felt like it was my fault.”

After the shower, she “laid in bed and cried while [Showers] did his own thing.”

L.P. believed that she was at Lovitt’s house for “the whole month of

December” but was not certain. Showers sexually assaulted her “[a] couple times

a day” during that time. When asked why she did not leave the house, L.P. said

that she “wasn’t allowed to” because Showers “wouldn’t let me.” She said that

“[h]e would threaten me. He would lock me in the bedroom.” More specifically,

L.P. described that Showers “would threaten me with the gun” from “in his closet.”
4

She added that Showers “told [her] if [she] tried leaving he’d shoot [her] brains

out.” L.P. could always see the gun leaning against the side of the closet in the

bedroom. L.P. added that she was too scared to leave. As L.P. described it,

Showers controlled when she ate, showered, used the bathroom, and washed her

clothes. She testified that he was always in the room with her unless she was

locked in the bedroom alone; Showers locked the door to the bedroom from the

outside, and L.P. tried but could not open the windows. She never saw anyone

else at the house besides Showers, and Showers took and hid her cell phone

before eventually smashing it.

After a while, Showers allowed L.P. to leave the house to earn money

cleaning their acquaintances’ houses. Showers would drop her off and pick her

up from the cleaning jobs. She tried to tell the acquaintances what was happening

to her, “but they were all drugged out.” After L.P. “worked up enough courage to

run,” she went to a homeless shelter; the shelter staff called her parents.

Burlington Police Officers dropped her off at her mom’s house. L.P. did not tell the

shelter staff, the officers, or her parents what happened because she “was scared

to.” Finally, in August, L.P. went to a Child Protection Center (CPC) and told

forensic interviewer Rebecca Valladares about the previous weeks because she

“knew it was somebody safe and somebody I could trust. And she believed me.”

On cross-examination, L.P. was questioned about several instances

involving conflicting statements, including information that came from her interview

with Burlington Police Detective Kegan Jacobson held after the CPC interview.

She admitted that she did not mention the funny-tasting coffee or ice cream at the

deposition or to Detective Jacobson. Showers paraphrased the deposition
5

repeatedly and then asked L.P. if she remembered the paraphrased statements.

First, he asked,

Q. Do you remember telling me two weeks ago in your
deposition that you lived at [Showers’s] for a week before the first
sexual incident happened? A. I don’t remember saying that.
Q. I asked you how long were you there at his house before
the first sexual incident, your answer: “Probably a week.” Does that
help you remember? A. Meaning I wasn’t sure.

Then, Showers asked about L.P.’s attempts to escape saying, “in my deposition

when I asked you about that you said you made no attempts to escape. Do you

remember saying that?” L.P. said, “No.” Showers asked if L.P. denied “that that’s

what you said?” And L.P. answered, “No.” Showers also asked about L.P.’s earlier

statements about going to a hotel, instead of directly going to Showers’s place,

and conflicts in her statements about whether she ever stayed in Showers’s guest

room. L.P. waffled in her responses to both inquiries. Lastly, Showers and L.P.

also went back and forth about whether the sexual assaults happened two or three

times a day. Showers stated: “But in your deposition you said three times a day.”

L.P. responded, “Yes, meaning a couple.” On redirect examination, L.P. explained

that when she was drinking and doing drugs she would lose pieces of time. When

asked if she “recall[ed] being sexually assaulted by . . . Showers”, L.P. answered,

“Yes.”

Detective Jacobson testified after L.P. In his interview with Showers after

Showers was told he was being investigated for a sexual assault, Jacobson asked

about Showers knowing the owner of the “drug house,” Showers “clammed up.”

As for his interview with L.P., Detective Jacobson stated that L.P. did not tell him

about spiked coffee or ice cream but did claim that Showers sexually assaulted
6

her three times a day for a month. When Valladares testified, she opined that if a

child is intoxicated during a traumatic event “they’re not going to remember that

situation like they would if they were not under the influence.”

Both Lovitt and Showers’s friend, Wendy Rice Fenton, also testified at trial.

Lovitt testified that the doors in her house unlock from the inside even if locked

from the outside. Pointing to photographs of the locks and windows, she added

that she had unlocked the windows and removed the screens recently and found

both easy to do. The court admitted Lovitt’s bank statements, which showed that

she made purchases in the Burlington area from November 26 through December

17, 2021; Detective Jacobson confirmed that, based on cell phone location data,

Lovitt was traveling west and then south from Burlington to Arizona beginning on

December 17 and that she did not return until March 2022. Lovitt could not directly

remember meeting Rice Fenton before leaving the state on December 17 and did

not confirm being around her during any days in December 2021. Lovitt also stated

that her grandson, Showers’s son, stayed at the house for three or four days

between Christmas and New Year’s Day. Lovitt insisted that she did not know L.P.

and had never seen her in her house. Rice Fenton testified that she met Showers

in November 2021 and that they “were friends and friends with benefits.” After

meeting Showers, Rice Fenton would stay at Lovitt’s house “[c]lose to daily.” She

stated that she did not believe it was possible that a teenage girl was at the house

at the times that she was. Showers also sometimes stayed at Rice Fenton’s

house. Lastly, she testified that she met Lovitt sometime in November but was

unsure if she met her again before Lovitt returned from Arizona.
7

The jury found Showers guilty of the lesser-included offense of third-degree

sexual abuse in violation of Iowa Code section 709.4(1)(a), a class “C” felony. The

court sentenced Showers to a term of imprisonment not to exceed ten years.

Showers appeals.

I. Standard of Review.

We review claims of insufficient evidence for correction of errors at law.

State v. Cook, 996 N.W.2d 703, 708 (Iowa 2023). “We will uphold a jury’s verdict

if it is supported by substantial evidence.” Id. “Evidence is substantial if it is

‘sufficient to convince a rational trier of fact the defendant is guilty beyond a

reasonable doubt.’” Id. (quoting Mathis, 971 N.W.2d at 516–17). We “view the

‘evidence in the light most favorable to the State, including legitimate inferences

and presumptions that may fairly and reasonably be deduced from the record

evidence.’” Id. (quoting State v. Quinn, 691 N.W.2d 403, 407 (Iowa 2005)).

Evidence that does no more than “raise[] suspicion, speculation, or conjecture is

insufficient.” State v. West Vangen, 975 N.W.2d 344, 349 (Iowa 2022) (citation

omitted).

II. Analysis.

Showers contends that there is not sufficient evidence to support his

conviction, specifically because L.P.’s stories changed between her deposition,

interviews, and her trial testimony and because he presented testimony from two

witnesses that contradicted L.P.’s claims. He claims that “L.P.’s uncorroborated

and absurd testimony was not credible enough to provide sufficient evidence to

support a conviction.”
8

“Jury instructions, when not objected to, become the law of the case for

purposes of appellate review for sufficiency-of-evidence claims.” State v.

Schiebout, 944 N.W.2d 666, 671 (Iowa 2020). The jury instructions for third-

degree sexual abuse required the State to prove: “1. Between the dates of

November 26, 2021, and December 31, 2021, [Showers] performed a sex act with

L.P. and 2. [Showers] performed the sex act by force or against the will of L.P.”

The jury instructions further defined “sex act” to mean any sexual contact

1. By penetration of the penis into the vagina or anus.
2. Between the mouth of one person and the genitals of
another.
3. Between the genitals of one person and the genitals or anus
of another.
4. Between the finger or hand of one person and the genitals
or anus of another person.
5. By a person’s use of an artificial sex organ or a substitute
for a sexual organ in contact with the genitals or anus of another.

The instructions also stated that the jury “may consider the type of contact

and the circumstances surrounding it in deciding whether the contact was sexual

in nature.” Lastly, regarding “by force or against the will,” the jury instructions laid

out that “[t]he force used by [Showers] does not have to be physical. It may consist

of threats of violence against [L.P.] . . . which overcame [her] will by fear.” The

instruction gave the same clarification that the jury could consider “all of the

circumstances surrounding [Showers’s] act in deciding whether the act was done

by force or against the will of L.P.”

In reviewing jury verdicts, generally, “[i]t is not the province of the

court . . . to resolve conflicts in the evidence, to pass upon the credibility of

witnesses, to determine the plausibility of explanations, or to weigh the evidence;

such matters are for the jury.” State v. Williams, 695 N.W.2d 23, 28 (Iowa 2005)
9

(citation omitted). “[W]e defer to the fact finder’s determinations concerning

witness credibility.” State v. Wells, 629 N.W.2d 346, 356 (Iowa 2001). This is so

because “[i]nherent in our standard of review of jury verdicts in criminal cases is

the recognition that the jury [is] free to reject certain evidence, and credit other

evidence.” State v. Nitcher, 720 N.W.2d 547, 556 (Iowa 2006) (citation omitted);

accord State v. Shorter, 945 N.W.2d 1, 10 (Iowa 2020) (“[T]he jury can believe

some of a witness’s story while rejecting other parts.”) Additionally, “[a] sexual

abuse victim’s testimony alone may be sufficient evidence for conviction.” State v.

Donahue, 957 N.W.2d 1, 10–11 (Iowa 2021); accord Iowa R. Crim. P. 2.21(3)

(“Corroboration of the testimony of victims shall not be required.”).

However, Showers leans on the exception to this general rule for “a witness

who so contradicts [herself] as to render finding of facts [premised on her

testimony] a mere guess.” State v. Mitchell, 568 N.W.2d 493, 503 (Iowa 1997)

(citation omitted).2 He argues that this court should rely on Smith to disregard

L.P.’s contradictory testimony. 508 N.W.2d at 103. In Smith, our court found the

evidence presented was insufficient as a matter of law because the testimony of

two child witnesses was “inconsistent, self-contradictory, lacking in experiential

detail, and, at times, border[ed] on the absurd.”3 Id. More specifically, as to one

2 This doctrine was developed first in Graham v. Chicago & Nw. Ry. Co., 119

N.W. 708, 709 (Iowa 1909) and State ex rel. Mochnick v. Andrioli, 249
N.W. 379, 380 (Iowa 1933). Yet, in Mitchell and Andrioli, corroboration of the
victim’s testimony allowed resolution of “inconsistencies” within the witnesses’s
testimony. See Mitchell,568 N.W.2d at 504; Andrioli, 249 N.W. at 380. Thus, this
doctrine should not be read to be a backdoor requirement for corroboration of the
victim’s account of abuse, whether conflicting at times or not. See State v.
Kraai, 969 N.W.2d 487, 490–91 (Iowa 2022) (discussing the history leading to the
removal of the need for corroboration evidence in sexual abuse cases).
3 One judge of the three-judge panel dissented.
10

of the child witnesses, the court found the “testimony as a whole [was] self-

contradictory, lack[ed] experiential detail, and describe[d] scenes . . . that border

on the surreal,” so it lacked “the probative value needed to support a guilty verdict.”

Id. at 104. The court’s decision hinged largely on the fact that “[n]o one, other than

the girls themselves, ever saw or heard [the defendant] do or say anything that

would raise any suspicion he was abusing them—even those who were in the room

during the alleged episodes of abuse.” Id. at 105.

The State urges us to overrule Smith, pointing to “questions of whether

Smith even remains a viable precedent.” State v. Ross, No. 20-0914, 2022

WL 3440701, at *2 (Iowa Ct. App. Aug. 17, 2022) (considering Mathis, 971 N.W.2d

at 518). Indeed, our court has stated that “[t]he use of the doctrine relied upon in

Smith to vacate a conviction is ‘exceedingly rare.’” State v. Atkins,

No. 20-0488, 2021 WL 3895198, at *3 (Iowa Ct. App. Sept. 1, 2021) (quoting State

v. Hobbs, No. 12-0730, 2013 WL 988860, at *3 (Iowa Ct. App. Mar. 13, 2013)).

Iowa courts have repeatedly deviated from Smith, distinguishing on different facts

between the cases. See, e.g., State v. Trane, 984 N.W.2d 429, 437 (Iowa 2023)

(finding “no fatal deficiencies in [the witness’s] testimony that would have required

the district court to find her unbelievable”); State v. Veverka, No. 22-0255, 2023

WL 5949004, at *5 (Iowa Ct. App. Sept. 13, 2023) (“Even assuming Smith remains

good law, [the child witness’s] statements were not so inconsistent or otherwise

deficient that the district court was required to find her unbelievable.”).
11

Taking a cue from the discussions about Smith since its inception,4 we point

out that not only did Smith draw on archaic concepts about sexual abuse to support

its decision, but it also glossed over the gatekeeping concepts that must frame our

analysis. “Smith is at best wrongheaded and at worst offensive and dangerous.”

Buller, 102 Iowa L. Rev. Online, at 186; accord id. at 194 (opining that Smith

“reinforce[s] outdated myths that perpetuate rape culture and harm the victims of

sexual assault”). We agree with our supreme court that “[t]he primary flaw in Smith

is that it is inconsistent with the standard of appellate review of jury verdicts, which

requires that the evidence be viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict and

which requires deference to the jury’s resolution of disputed factual issues.”

Mathis, 971 N.W.2d at 518.

Along with our supreme court’s directive over the ill-advised use of the

Smith case, each decision departing from or declining to follow Smith is an implicit

4 If we are keeping score, six active judges writing for panels of our court have

declined to follow Smith. See State v. Crews, No. 22-1031, 2023 WL 2908621,
at *3 (Iowa Ct. App. Apr. 12, 2023); State v. Duran-Sierra, No. 21-1312, 2023
WL 2148743, at *2 (Iowa Ct. App. Feb. 22, 2023); Ross, 2022 WL 3440701, at *2;
Atkins, 2021 WL 3895198, at *3; State v. Mayes, No. 19-0252, 2020 WL 2060306,
at *6 (Iowa Ct. App. Apr. 29, 2020); State v. Lusk, No. 15-1294, 2016 WL 4384672,
at *2 (Iowa Ct. App. Aug. 17, 2016). Four current senior judges have done the
same. See Veverka, 2023 WL 5949004, at *5; State v. Garduno-Rodriguez,
No. 17-1165, 2018 WL 3057543, at *2 (Iowa Ct. App. June 20, 2018); State v.
Schondelmeyer, No. 14-0621, 2015 WL 1817030, at *3–4 (Iowa Ct. App.
Apr. 22, 2015); State v. Umana, No. 11-0667, 2012 WL 4513859, at *8–9 (Iowa
Ct. App. Oct. 3, 2012). Another active judge—before his appointment to judicial
office—openly requested that we bury Smith in a law review article. See generally
Tyler J. Buller, State v. Smith Perpetuates Rape Myths and Should Be Formally
Disavowed, 102 Iowa L. Rev. Online 185 (2017) [hereinafter Buller]. And our
supreme court has taken up Smith in two recent cases and expressed skepticism
about its applicability. See Trane, 984 N.W.2d at 437; Mathis, 971 N.W.2d at 518.
In a total of seventy-seven cases over the past thirty years, our courts have found
Smith did not control.
12

recognition of the incorrect reasoning employed in that decision. As our decisions

over the last thirty years suggest, we have not returned to the flawed analysis found

in Smith. Our courts have done so when the witness was intoxicated at the time

of the alleged abuse or a child. See, e.g., Duran-Sierra, 2023 WL 2148743, at *2

(finding substantial evidence to support the conviction and declining to review the

witness’s credibility even though she was intoxicated the night of the incident);

State v. Fangman, No. 22-0256, 2023 WL 152571, at *2 (Iowa Ct. App.

Jan. 11, 2023) (finding substantial evidence supported the conviction even when

the child witness was intoxicated to the point of vomiting and told different stories

to various people). We did so because “child victims often have trouble recalling

details of attacks and fail to report sex abuse crimes in a timely fashion” and

“[i]nconsistencies and lack of detail are common in sexual abuse cases and do not

compel a jury to conclude that the victim is not credible or that there is insufficient

evidence to support a guilty verdict.” Donahue, 957 N.W.2d at 10, 11.

Iowa courts have additionally done so when the victim could not pin down

the dates, times, or location of the sexual abuse. Id. at 10; Atkins, 2021

WL 3895198, at *3 (“Inconsistencies in [the victim’s] testimony regarding the

particular time and location of specific instances of abuse over the relevant time

period do not preclude a conviction.”); Crews, 2023 WL 2908621, at *3 (“[T]he

children could not pin down exact dates or times of day when the incidents

occurred, but such specificity is not required.”). We consider that our society today

understands better the emotional and psychological hurdles that impact the

reporting and memory of sexual assaults and that education is imparted to juries

in these cases. See Buller, 102 Iowa L. Rev. Online, at 200. So once evidence is
13

laid out, on our review we must look at it in the light most favorable to the verdict,

requiring deference to the jury’s resolution of disputed factual issues and not our

vantage point from a cold record. Cook, 996 N.W.2d at 708.

So, under the appropriate review, with the evidence viewed in the light most

favorable to the verdict, Showers’s attack on the sufficiency of the evidence here

fails. Although Showers argues that Lovitt, Rice Fenton, and Showers’s son were

all at the house around the same time as L.P., Lovitt’s and Rice Fenton’s stories

were also inconsistent; Lovitt believed she met Rice Fenton only once in November

and made no mention of seeing her in December, but Rice Fenton testified that

she met Lovitt every time she came over to the house after meeting Showers in

November. Similarly, Lovitt believed that no one else was in the house besides

Showers until Lovitt left for Arizona on December 17; Rice Fenton insisted that she

was at the house nearly every day. The jury, as fact finders, could have

disregarded their imprecise timelines and found that L.P. was the only other person

in the house with Showers at the time of the alleged sexual abuse.

Thus, we find that a reasonable jury could have found beyond a reasonable

doubt that Showers performed a sex act with L.P. against her force or will, even

given the inconsistencies in her story. Although lacking specific details about

dates, L.P. testified that at some point at the end of 2021, Showers inserted his

fingers into her vagina and then inserted his penis into her vagina without her

consent. As the sexual assaults continued and when she resisted, Showers

threatened her with a firearm and told her if she tried to leave he would “shoot her

brains out.” And while Lovitt and Rice Fenton raise questions about L.P.’s story,

they mainly question the timeline of these events; principally, they insist that the
14

events could not have happened while they were also in Lovitt’s house. The jury

was at liberty to reconcile their testimony with L.P.’s, even to reject parts of L.P.’s

testimony, and there was substantial evidence for them to reach the verdict they

did without a pinpointed timeline. For these reasons, substantial evidence

supports Showers’s conviction for third-degree sexual abuse, and we affirm.

AFFIRMED.