Charles City woman’s conviction of trying to kill mother upheld by Court of Appeals

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

A Charles City woman who was sentenced to up to 25 years in prison after being convicted of trying to murder her mother has had her conviction upheld on appeal.

In a recent decision, the Iowa Court of Appeals ruled that the attempted murder conviction of Jennifer Bean, age 46, would stand, saying specifically that three legal issues her appeals attorney raised regarding actions in the original trial court were not valid.

Bean had been convicted of injecting her mother with insulin at least twice in an act that Bean, an emergency medical technician (EMT), knew would endanger her life, the Floyd County District Court jury had decided. Bean’s mother was not diabetic and had not been prescribed insulin.

Bean’s defense team had argued that Bean was concerned about her mother’s health, because her mother had been diagnosed with breast cancer and wasn’t taking her prescribed medications, instead relying on treatments that she read about on the internet and that affected her mental state.

In emotional testimony, Bean said she thought that injecting her mother with insulin would result in her losing consciousness so that Bean could call an ambulance and have her taken to the hospital, where her medical condition could be evaluated.

The jury deliberated about 2½ hours before returning the guilty verdict.

In the appeal, Bean’s attorney argued that the trial location should have been moved from Floyd County because of how well known Bean and her family were in the community and because of pretrial publicity, that the trial court had abused its discretion by denying a request to admit about 20,000 text messages into evidence, and that there there was insufficient evidence to convict.

The Court of Appeals ruled that no potential jury members who said they knew the family or knew about the case served on the jury, and that pretrial publicity was  “factual in tone and straightforward in presenting information,” and not prejudicial.

Regarding the text messages, the court ruled that Bean’s attorney had not offered an explanation during the trial — an “offer of proof” — of what the text messages would show, and so had not preserved the right to question the trial court’s decision on that matter.

Regarding the sufficiency of evidence to convict, Bean’s appeal had argued that the prosecution had failed to prove that Bean’s actions injecting her mother with insulin had been an attempt to end her life.

But the Court of Appeals ruled that circumstantial evidence of intent is sufficient because intent is a state of mind and direct proof is uncommon.

“Bean claims she had no intent to kill (her mother) and only intended to get her to the hospital to be seen by a doctor. But the jury implicitly rejected Bean’s version of events, as it was free to do, when it convicted her,” the Court of Appeals wrote.

Under Iowa law, a conviction for attempted murder is a B felony and is among a set of crimes that requires the person sentenced to serve a minimum of seven-tenths — 70% — of the time before being eligible for parole or work release. That would be 17½ years in this case, or in the year 2037.

Bean is currently incarcerated in the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women in Mitchellville.