Opinion
No. 3-237 / 02-0102.
Filed July 23, 2003.
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Washington County, E. Richard Meadows, Judge.
The defendant appeals, for the second time, his sentence for manufacturing more than five grams of a compound or mixture containing a detectable amount of methamphetamine. Iowa Code § 124.401(1)(b)(7) (1999). AFFIRMED.
Linda Del Gallo, State Appellate Defender, and Dennis Hendrickson, Assistant Appellate Defender, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Darrel Mullins, Assistant Attorney General, Barbara Edmondson, County Attorney, and Eric Goers, Assistant County Attorney, for appellee.
Considered by Habhab, Harris, and Snell, S.J.
Senior judges assigned by order pursuant to Iowa Code section 602.9206 (2001).
The defendant, Ronald Lee Royer, for the second time, appeals his sentence for manufacturing more than five grams of a compound or mixture containing a detectable amount of methamphetamine. Iowa Code § 124.401(1)(b)(7) (1999). The appellant again asserts ineffective assistance of counsel. We disagree and affirm.
The facts of this case are reported in State v. Royer, 632 N.W.2d 905 (Iowa 2001). We need not repeat those facts except for the following, which sets forth the supreme court's reasoning in vacating defendant's sentence on his guilty plea and remanding to the district court to allow the State to establish a factual basis for the original charge under the interpretation it had given the disputed statute:
The State sought to show a factual basis for defendant's guilty plea by relying on the potential yield of methamphetamine that might be obtained from the foregoing materials, assuming that anhydrous ammonia was obtained for use in the manufacturing process. According to the State, if that was done the potential yield would have been 276 grams of methamphetamine.
The State's attempt to establish a factual basis for defendant's plea based on potential yield does not comport with the requirements of the statute under which he was charged. It is necessary to show that the manufacturing process in fact yielded five grams or more of methamphetamine, its salts, isomers or salts of isomers, or analogs of methamphetamine, or as the court of appeals declared in Rivera, more than give grams of "any compound or mixture which contains any quantity or detectable amount of methamphetamine." Rivera, 614 N.W.2d at 584.
On the record presented, there is clearly no factual basis for the plea under the first alternative. With respect to the second alternative, the record does not disclose an adequate factual basis for the plea, but we cannot state with certainty that such basis does not exist. The laboratory report does not reveal the weight of the liquid compounds containing methamphetamine. Nor was the residue identified in lab exhibits "B" and "D" quantified. As a result, we have no way of knowing whether, if the weight of those compounds were added to the powder compound weighing 2.53 grams, the total weight of manufactured substance containing methamphetamine would exceed five grams.
Royer, 632 N.W.2d at 909.
In the first appeal, the supreme court held that the State may show a factual basis for a section 124.401(1)(b)(7) violation by offering evidence of "more than five grams of `any compound or mixture which contains any quantity or detectable amount of methamphetamine.'" Id. In doing so, the supreme court concurred with the reasoning of the court in State v. Rivera, 614 N.W.2d 581 (Iowa Ct.App. 2000), where we concluded that the "gram weight under the statute includes the weight of any mixture containing a detectable amount of methamphetamine." Rivera, 632 N.W.2d at 584.
We further stated in Rivera:
The statute specifically states the amount must be five grams or more of "methamphetamine . . . or any compound, mixture, or preparation which contains any quantity or detectable amount of methamphetamine. . . ." Iowa Code section 124.401(1)(b)(7) (1997). It does not specify any particular stage of the manufacturing or post-manufacturing process, nor does it indicate an expected yield must be estimated or a pure form must be extracted in order to weigh this narcotic.
Id.
From our de novo review of the record, we conclude that trial counsel breached no professional duty as argued by appellant. The record is now clear that the starter fluid that was used as solvent contained a detectable amount of methamphetamine. When the entire weight of the mixture containing the detectable amount of methamphetamine is considered, we conclude that a factual basis for Royer's guilty plea exists.