Iowa Appeals Court affirms Charles City man’s conviction for son’s death

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

The Iowa Court of Appeals last week affirmed conviction of a Charles City man who a jury decided was responsible for the death of his infant son.

Shane Michael Morris, now age 28, had been charged with first-degree murder, a Class A felony, and child endangerment resulting in death, a Class B felony.

A Floyd County jury found him guilty in March 2022 of the child endangerment charge, but on the murder charge the jury convicted him of involuntary manslaughter, which is a lesser included offense.

Judge James Drew in Floyd County District Court sentenced Morris to “an indeterminate term, not to exceed 50 years” on the Class B felony charge of child endangerment.

After the conviction, Morris’ attorney, Judith O’Donohoe of Charles City, appealed the verdict, arguing that the District Court had made five errors.

She argued that the District Court judge had erred by denying suppression of evidence including an interview of Morris by an Iowa Department of Criminal Investigation agent at Mayo Clinic Hospital before Morris had been informed of his Miranda rights, denying suppression of a search warrant for a cellphone and records, and denying suppression of a search warrant for Google records.

Morris’ 3½-month-old son developed problems breathing early in the morning Aug. 3, 2019, while he was under Morris’ sole care, and Morris took him to Floyd County Medical Center. The boy was flown to a Mayo Clinic hospital where it was determined he had a skull fracture and swelling of the brain. Mayo doctors told the family the boy was brain dead later that evening, and artificial life support was turned off the next afternoon.

An autopsy concluded the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head, inflicted by another person.

The Appeals court ruled that Morris was not in custody when being interviewed by the DCI agent and could have stopped the interview at any time, and that there was probably cause for the cellphone and Google records searches and that they were handled lawfully.

O’Donohoe also argued that Judge Drew erred in admitting and excluding certain evidence during the trial, but the Appeals Court affirmed the District Court ruling in each instance.

She also argued that the judge should have excluded the testimony of a state witness, but the Appeals Court ruled that there was no analysis or citation of authority to support the claim and the court affirmed the judge’s decision.

O’Donohoe also argued that Judge Drew should not have excluded a witness for the defense who would have testified what a good father Morris is, but the Appeals Court agreed with the District Court that the testimony of how Morris acted with a different child a year after the child in question had died was “irrelevant and inadmissible” and was correctly excluded.

O’Donohoe’s fifth argument was the the District Court abused its discretion in denying a motion for a judgment of acquittal and a new trial, but the Appeals Court ruled there was sufficient evidence to support the convictions by the jury.

“Because the District Court neither abused its discretion nor erred, substantial evidence supports the guilty verdicts, and the court used the proper standard in its ruling, we affirm Morris’s convictions for involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment resulting in death,” the Court of Appeals ruled last week.

Morris is currently serving his sentence in Anamosa State Penitentiary.