State of Iowa v. Quarian Deonte Moore

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 22-1794
Filed July 3, 2024

STATE OF IOWA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,

vs.

QUARIAN DEONTE MOORE,
Defendant-Appellant.
________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, Scott D. Rosenberg,

Judge.

A defendant appeals his convictions and sentences for first-degree murder

and attempted murder. AFFIRMED.

Martha J. Lucey, State Appellate Defender, and Theresa R. Wilson and

Ashley Stewart (until withdrawal), Assistant Appellate Defenders, for appellant.

Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Timothy M. Hau, Assistant Attorney

General, for appellee.

Heard by Bower, C.J., and Tabor and Greer, JJ., but decided by Tabor, P.J.,

Greer, J., and Bower, S.J.*

*Senior judge assigned by order pursuant to Iowa Code section 602.9206

(2024).
2

TABOR, Presiding Judge.

A jury convicted Quarian Moore of first-degree murder and attempted

murder for shooting two people at a Des Moines intersection in November 2021.

Moore was just shy of his eighteenth birthday at the time of the crime. The district

court imposed a mandatory minimum term of incarceration of twenty-five years.

Moore now argues the State failed to present sufficient evidence that he was the

shooter and that the court improperly applied the juvenile sentencing factors.1

Finding substantial evidence that Moore shot and killed Dean Deng and wounded

B.C., and observing no abuse of discretion in Moore’s sentencing, we affirm.

I. Facts and Prior Proceedings

Security footage of the drive-by shooting in the early morning hours of

November 14—coupled with Moore’s suspicious actions before and after—led

police to probe his involvement. Three hours before the shooting, Moore was

hanging out at his friend Ryan’s apartment. Around midnight, Ryan recorded a

Snapchat video that showed Moore wearing a distinctive sweatshirt and pointing

a black and brown handgun2 at the phone camera.

A few hours later, Moore left that apartment—carrying a black bag. He was

seen on the building’s camera at 3:49 a.m. getting into the passenger seat of a

Toyota Sienna van driven by his girlfriend, R.P.-H. Just ten minutes before the

shooting, the van left the parking lot on Hubbell Avenue.

1 In his appellant’s brief, Moore also asks our supreme court to reconsider its

stance on mandatory minimums for juveniles under the Iowa Constitution. But the
case was transferred to us. We must follow precedent. See State v. Zarate, 908
N.W.2d 831, 856 (Iowa 2018).
2 Detectives never found that gun, but the State asserted that it was “consistent

with the murder weapon.”
3

From there, detectives pieced together evidence that Moore was the

shooter. They used video surveillance from around the city, tracing his path from

the apartment building with footage captured from businesses and private homes.

That footage showed the van speeding by, at intervals, until it reached a redlight

camera near East Fifteenth Street and Maple Street, a few blocks south of where

the shooting happened. A camera at the nearby Subway restaurant showed two

other vehicles—a silver Chrysler 200 and a silver Cadillac—come into frame at

3:59 a.m. Deng drove the Chrysler with three other occupants—B.C., in the front

passenger seat, and G.B. and N.G. in the back seat.3 Two other friends of Deng,

S.A. and P.T., followed in the Cadillac. R.P.-H.’s van let the Chrysler and Cadillac

pass so that it could follow behind them.

All three vehicles then stopped for a red light at the intersection of East

Fourteenth Street and University Avenue. The van pulled into the turning lane to

the left of the Chrysler, with the Cadillac slightly behind to the right. There is no

video of the shooting. But at 4:00 a.m., a neighborhood doorbell camera recorded

the sound of six shots being fired.

All three vehicles then took off west on University Avenue. The van sped

away first. The Chrysler gave chase for about five blocks before slowing to a halt

near Iowa Lutheran Hospital. The Cadillac did not make it that far, slamming into

a curb near the shooting scene. A patrol officer happened to be driving west on

University Avenue and saw the Cadillac hit the curb. Passenger P.T. bolted from

3 Deng’s mother said at the sentencing hearing that Deng was driving his friend’s

car home because his friend was too intoxicated to drive.
4

the Cadillac, stumbling a bit before running off. The patrol officer tried to talk to

the driver, S.A., but he would not cooperate.

Meanwhile, from the Chrysler, backseat passenger G.B. called police.

When officers arrived, they found the driver, Deng, unconscious; he “was slumped

over so his head was towards the . . . front passenger side of [the] vehicle.” The

bullet went through his left arm into his chest. The officers tried in vain to

resuscitate him. Medics transported Deng to the hospital, where he was

pronounced dead. Front-seat passenger B.C. had also been shot. Police later

learned that B.C. ran to the Lutheran Hospital emergency room where medical

personnel treated an injury to his left forearm.

A hunt for the shooter ensued. Two and a half hours after the shooting,

crime scene investigators found six round casings on the ground at East

Fourteenth Street and University Avenue; the casings formed an arc between the

left-turn lane and the center lane on the northbound side of the intersection.

Ballistics analysts determined they were all discharged by the same gun.

Investigators also noted “multiple . . . bullet holes on the driver side and front of the

[Chrysler].” But they found no bullets inside either the Chrysler or the Cadillac. As

for the third vehicle, around 9:00 a.m., police received a call from R.P.-H.’s mother

reporting the Toyota van, registered to her daughter, had been stolen. R.P.-H. told

her mother that the van was stolen between 4:00 and 9:00 that morning.

Police eventually identified R.P.-H.’s boyfriend, Moore, as the person

entering her van at the Hubbell apartment complex. Armed with that information,

police obtained footage from the doorbell camera at the house where Moore lived

with his mother. It showed R.P.-H. and Moore going inside about one hour after
5

the shooting, Moore having changed his clothes. They left after only four minutes.

Moore carried the same black bag as before.

The next day, police located the Toyota van behind a dumpster in a parking

lot across from R.P.-H.’s apartment building. No round casings were found inside

the van. But police could see that the passenger seat was fully reclined, and the

back windows could not open wide enough to accommodate a shooter.4 Believing

that Moore, as the van’s front-seat passenger, was the shooter, police sought to

arrest him. They found him at his friend Ryan’s apartment. When Moore spotted

the police, he fled, throwing a loaded nine millimeter Ruger under a car in the

parking lot. He was soon apprehended by detectives. The discarded handgun

was not the murder weapon. In fact, the murder weapon was never found.

The State charged Moore with first-degree murder, a class “A” felony in

violation of Iowa Code section 707.2(1)(a) (2021) and attempted murder, a

class “B” felony in violation of section 707.11. While in jail awaiting trial, Moore

called R.P.-H., coaxing her to say: “You don’t remember, you don’t know.” And:

“Basically, what they know is what you know. Like, you picked me up, you, like,

we heard shots, and we pulled off.”

Although police identified the occupants of all three vehicles involved in the

fatal encounter, none would cooperate with the investigation. So, at trial, the State

relied on circumstantial evidence to support its theory that Moore was the shooter.

4 Des Moines Police detective Ryan Garrett testified that “the back window of the

van is not a window that will roll down.” And in its closing argument, the State
emphasized, “the back passenger windows don’t open. This is one of those ones
where it kind of pops open like an inch and pops closed an inch. It’s not one that
you would be able to roll down and shoot out the window.” At oral argument,
Moore’s counsel confirmed that description.
6

First, he and R.P.-H. were the van’s only occupants and there was not enough

time between leaving the apartment on Hubbell and reaching the intersection of

East Fourteenth Street and University Avenue to pick up passengers. Detectives

recreated Moore’s route and determined that the drive took nine or ten minutes,

roughly the same duration as the footage they obtained. Second, the van’s back

windows could not roll down to allow a backseat passenger to shoot out. Third,

the occupants of the Cadillac were friends of Deng and B.C., so they were unlikely

to have a motive to shoot at them. Fourth, the location of the round casings pointed

to the van’s passenger as the shooter.5 Fifth, although police did not find the

murder weapon, the casings found on the scene matched the ammunition loaded

into the Ruger that Moore discarded while fleeing police.6 And sixth, Detective

Garrett testified he knew from his personal experience that Moore and “his

associates” have “had disputes” with Deng and “his associates.”

The jury found Moore guilty as charged. After hearing from experts for both

the State and the defense on juvenile sentencing factors, the district court imposed

a life sentence on the murder count, requiring Moore to serve twenty-five years

before he was eligible for parole. On the attempted murder count, the court

imposed a twenty-five-year term, requiring Moore to serve seventeen and one-half

5 Detective Garrett testified that it would be unlikely for the casings to land on the

street if the driver had shot them. He said while it is not an “exact science” to
determine the shooter’s location from the casings, “if a driver was driving a vehicle
and shooting from the left side of the car outside of the right side of the car, those
casings would more than likely be within the vehicle.”
6 Law enforcement was able to “narrow it down to just a couple different makes

and models of gun that would have left these particular markings on [the] . . .
casings.”
7

years before being eligible for parole. The sentences are to run concurrently.

Moore appeals both his convictions and sentences.

II. Analysis

A. Sufficiency of the Evidence

Moore first argues that the State did not present sufficient evidence that he

was the shooter. He insists the circumstantial evidence against him is no stronger

than the evidence pointing to others present at the shooting. He challenges the

State’s proof that he was in the van’s passenger’s seat. And even if he were there,

he posits that the shooter could have been in the Cadillac.

We review Moore’s claim for the correction of errors at law. State v.

Cook, 996 N.W.2d 703, 708 (Iowa 2023). We consider “whether, taken in the light

most favorable to the State, the finding of guilt is supported by substantial evidence

in the record.” State v. Kelso-Christy, 911 N.W.2d 663, 666 (Iowa 2018) (citation

omitted). Substantial evidence exists if the record “would convince a rational fact

finder the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” State v. Crawford, 974

N.W.2d 510, 516 (Iowa 2022) (citation omitted). “Evidence which merely raises

suspicion, speculation, or conjecture is insufficient.” State v. Casady, 491

N.W.2d 782, 787 (Iowa 1992).

To convict Moore of first-degree murder, the State had to prove:

1) On or about November 14, 2021, [Moore] shot Dean
Deng.
2) Dean Deng died as a result of being shot.
3) [Moore] acted with malice aforethought.
4) [Moore] acted willfully, deliberately, premeditatedly and
with specific intent to kill Dean Deng or another.
8

And for attempted murder, the State had to prove:

1) On or about November 14, 2021, [Moore] shot B.C.
2) By his acts, [Moore] expected to set in motion a force or
chain of events which could cause or result in the death of [B.C.]
3) When [Moore] acted, he specifically intended to cause the
death of [B.C.] or another.

Moore challenges the State’s proof of his identity. He emphasizes the lack

of key evidence—no murder weapon, no eyewitnesses, no identifying information

at the crime scene, no casings in the van, and “no video footage depicting the

actual shooting.” True, the State lacked direct proof of Moore’s involvement. But

it presented solid circumstantial evidence that Moore was the shooter. Through

exhaustive police work, the State wove together Moore’s ten-minute trip on

surveillance cameras from the Hubbell apartment complex to the scene of the

shooting. That video timeline allowed a reasonable jury to infer that Moore was

the passenger in his girlfriend’s van before, during, and after the shooting. Taken

with the detective’s testimony that the shooting was unlikely from the driver’s side,

the jury could reasonably determine that Moore was the shooter. The jury may

rely on circumstantial evidence, “especially when those pieces of circumstantial

evidence are considered collectively.” State v. Carter, No. 17-1773, 2021

WL 1400758, at *9 (Iowa Ct. App. Apr. 14, 2021). “There is no categorical

prohibition on stacking inferences so long as the evidence is” enough “to convince

a rational fact finder the defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id.

(cleaned up) (citation omitted).

What’s more, as the State argued on appeal, the prosecutors presented

incriminating evidence of Moore’s exploits before and after the shooting to

“bookend” its case. On the front end was Ryan’s Snapchat video showing Moore
9

brandishing a gun with his friends a few hours before the shooting. At the back

end were Moore’s phone calls to his girlfriend from jail. In one of those calls, Moore

spoke about the Snapchat video and the gun evidence. He asked: “Did I tell you

this already? The gun that—they have a video of me and Ryan?” R.P.-H.

responded: “Yeah, they’re trying to say that was the fucking gun.” Moore then

mentioned telling his lawyer that he “can go up to this person, get this information

from this person, match it with that same gun in that video and see if—since I had

that gun—they gonna be looking dumb as fuck.” Moore also reminded R.P.-H.

what happened, seeming to coach her on what to say. He mentioned the “brown

and black gun” and how police thought “it could have been that.” He then asked

R.P.-H.: “would that be bad for me to say? That they think that that could have

been the murder weapon? Dude got caught with it and it’s not the gun. So, I don’t

have nothing to do with none of that.”

At oral argument, Moore’s counsel urged that this gun discussion had an

innocent interpretation. That is, Moore knew he didn’t have the murder weapon.

Moore cites State v. Truesdell for the proposition that “[w]hen two reasonable

inferences can be drawn from a piece of evidence . . . such evidence only gives

rise to a suspicion and without additional evidence, is insufficient to support guilt.”

679 N.W.2d 611, 618–19 (Iowa 2004). Granted that is the law. But here the State

had a slew of circumstantial evidence beyond the jail calls. The calls just confirmed

the State’s theory of Moore’s involvement. See State v. Bentley, 757 N.W.2d 257,

262 (Iowa 2008) (“[T]he prosecution does not have ‘an affirmative duty to rule out

every hypothesis except that of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.’” (citation

omitted)). “[D]irect and circumstantial evidence are equally probative for the
10

‘purposes of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.’” Id. (citation omitted). The

jury could reasonably conclude that the calls, coupled with the other incriminating

evidence, pointed to Moore as the shooter.

On top of the jail calls, the State presented evidence that R.P.-H. and Moore

tried to distance themselves from the shooting by claiming the van had been stolen

in the early-morning hours of November 14. Moore also revealed his

consciousness of guilt when he ran from police officers when they arrived at Ryan’s

apartment to arrest him. See State v. Wilson, 878 N.W.2d 203, 211 (Iowa 2016)

(“It is well-settled law that the act of avoiding law enforcement after a crime has

been committed may constitute circumstantial evidence of consciousness of guilt

that is probative of guilt itself.”).

In sum, the State presented substantial evidence that Moore was the

shooter. The prosecutors did not rely on evidence that created mere speculation,

suspicion, or conjuncture. Instead, they presented threads of evidence that, when

woven together, could convince a jury of Moore’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Thus, we affirm Moore’s convictions.

B. Juvenile Sentencing Factors

Moore next contends that the district court misapplied the sentencing

factors for youthful offenders. He maintains that the court abused its discretion by

imposing a mandatory term of twenty-five years. We review Moore’s sentencing

challenge for an abuse of discretion. State v. Roby, 897 N.W.2d 127, 137

(Iowa 2017). We will find abuse of discretion only where “we are able to discern

that the decision was exercised on grounds or for reasons that were clearly

untenable or unreasonable.” State v. Formaro, 638 N.W.2d 720, 724 (Iowa 2002).
11

In applying this standard, we assess whether the district court weighed the societal

goals of sentencing—rehabilitation and impact on the community. See Iowa Code

§ 901.5. Beyond those goals, sentencing courts must consider “the nature of the

offense, the attending circumstances, the age, character and propensity of the

offender, and the chances of reform.” Formaro, 638 N.W.2d at 725.

But our review does not end there. Because Moore was a juvenile when he

committed these crimes, the sentencing court had to give “complete and careful

consideration of the relevant mitigating factors of youth.” Roby, 897 N.W.2d

at 144, 148. While the court may consider aggravating factors as well, they must

not overwhelm these “mitigating factors associated with youth.” Zarate, 908

N.W.2d at 850. Those factors include:

(1) the age of the offender and the features of youthful
behavior, such as “immaturity, impetuosity, and failure to appreciate
risks and consequences”;
(2) the particular “family and home environment” that surround
the youth;
(3) the circumstances of the particular crime and all
circumstances relating to youth that may have played a role in the
commission of the crime;
(4) the challenges for youthful offenders in navigating through
the criminal process; and
(5) the possibility of rehabilitation and the capacity for change.

State v. Lyle, 854 N.W.2d 378, 404 n.10 (Iowa 2014) (quoting Miller v.

Alabama, 567 U.S. 460, 477 (2012)).

Moore focuses on the first and fifth factors, contending the court discounted

their mitigating potential. At the sentencing hearing, Moore called psychologist

Dr. John Mayer to testify about his psychological evaluation. According to

Dr. Mayer’s report, Moore lacked maturity. The report mentioned that Moore’s

upbringing was good with no reports of physical abuse. But it noted that his father
12

was in prison and absent from his life. It emphasized that Moore was surrounded

by anti-social role models. It also highlighted his history with the law. Dr. Mayer

concluded that Moore was from an environment that rejects education and that he

had low cognitive abilities, poor judgment, and was prone to make impulsive

decisions. Dr. Mayer believed that Moore had a chance at rehabilitation with

proper intervention. Any explicit mention of the Miller/Lyle factors was notably

absent from his report.

The State countered with the testimony of psychologist Dr. Tracy Thomas.

Her report differed from Dr. Mayer’s views. She concentrated on the Miller/Lyle

factors. Her report acknowledged Moore’s below-average intelligence but found

that his insight and judgment were fair—though colored by anti-social thinking. Her

report also considered his upbringing, relationships, influences, and education.

Dr. Thomas administered psychological tests, noting that Moore’s results were

consistent with his presentation at the interview.7 Dr. Thomas found that Moore

posed a risk for future violence and that he showed a high level of sophistication

and maturity. Finally, her report found that his likelihood of meaningful

engagement in treatment or benefiting from treatment was low.

After hearing the experts’ competing opinions, the sentencing court found

there were “some mitigating factors in regard to family home environment as it was

made easier for Mr. Moore to engage in antisocial behavior.” The court also noted

Moore’s lack of contact with his father was a mitigating circumstance under Lyle.

The court acknowledged that Moore’s “incapacity of youth . . . may have

7 Moore mentioned to Dr. Mayer that he “didn’t tell Tracy ‘any truth,’” and that he

was “in general population then and had to play the role like everyone else.”
13

disadvantaged [him] in dealing with the justice system and challenges dealing with

police, participation in court.” But the court then said:

Mr. Moore’s juvenile age and immaturity is not such a mitigating
factor as to cause the Court to mitigate any sentence for the
defendant. The Court bases this on the evaluation done by
Dr. Thomas and finds that more credible than Dr. Mayer’s analysis
evaluation. Dr. Thomas’s evaluation is extremely thorough,
scientific, and objective.

In concluding its sentencing explanation, the court stated:

Finally, the fifth factor, Mr. Moore’s potential for rehabilitation is,
again, not a mitigating factor. The defendant has had opportunities
before in regard to rehabilitation as shown by his prior record,
including his juvenile record. It appears that the only way that the
defendant can benefit from supervision and/or rehabilitation is to be
done in an atmosphere that is controlled, structured, and effective.
And, in order to protect the public, it’s going to take time for Mr. Moore
for any rehabilitation, and the Court finds that the sentence is,
therefore, appropriate.

Ultimately, the court did not provide a reason why it went with the State’s

recommendation of a mandatory minimum term of twenty-five years.8 Despite this

gap, we find no abuse of discretion. While it would have been helpful for the court

to walk us through its exact reasoning behind the mandatory minimum sentence,

it did not err in accepting the State’s recommendation. The court considered both

experts’ reports but found Dr. Thomas to be more credible. “Sentencing courts in

Iowa generally have broad discretion to rely on information presented to them at

8 The court has broad discretion to choose when a youthful offender is eligible for

parole; “unlike the mandatory life without parole that adults who commit first-
degree murder are subject to, there is no mandatory minimum term of confinement
for juvenile offenders convicted of first-degree murder.” State v. Harrison, 914
N.W.2d 178, 200 (Iowa 2018). A juvenile’s mandatory minimum is defined by the
court. Zarate, 908 N.W.2d at 845.
14

sentencing.” State v. Headley, 926 N.W.2d 545, 550 (Iowa 2019). The court acted

within its discretion in giving greater weight to the stronger of the experts’ reports.

The court also considered Moore’s home environment as a mitigating factor

because it made Moore more likely to engage in antisocial behavior. But the court

also noted that Moore “acted solely. There was no evidence of peer pressure.”

Indeed, Moore was a couple of months shy of his eighteenth birthday at the time

of the crime, and Dr. Thomas believed that he could make his own decisions, which

indicated maturity. The court weighed the juvenile sentencing factors. The court

had room to balance the mitigating factors against the non-mitigating ones. Thus,

we find no abuse of discretion in its imposition of the mandatory minimum sentence

in Moore’s case.

AFFIRMED.