Stoney Rock Gifford, 34, was convicted of first-degree robbery, intimidation with a dangerous weapon, going armed with intent and control of a firearm by a felon in January 2022 by a Webster County jury. He was later sentenced to a total of up to 35 years in prison, with a mandatory minimum of 22 and a half years.

In the early morning hours of Aug. 22, 2020, Gifford approached victim Wallace Brady, who was sitting in the front seat of his car with the door open in the 100 block of Avenue M West.

According to witness testimony, Gifford walked up from behind the vehicle, placed himself between the door and the car, held a gun to Brady’s head and said some variation of, “What are you doing here?” and “Give me all of your stuff.”

When Brady refused to hand over the cash and drugs he admitted to having on him that night, Gifford angled the gun down toward Brady’s feet and fired one shot, hitting Brady on the left side of his knee. Brady was transported to UnityPoint Health — Trinity Regional Medical Center with non-life-threatening injuries and was released a few hours later.

Following his conviction, Gifford filed an appeal, arguing that his rights were violated at several times throughout the court proceedings, including a denial of a motion for bond reduction prior to trial, denial of a request to depose non-listed witnesses, denial of a challenge to a fair cross-section of jurors and prosecutorial misconduct.

In his appeal, Gifford argued that Webster County District Court Judge Kurt Wilke should not have denied his motion for a bond reduction. Gifford was being held on $50,000 cash-only bond and he moved for a bond review and asked the court to reduce the bond to $25,000 cash or surety. In an 11-page ruling filed by the Appeals Court on Wednesday, the court of appeals found the issue moot because Gifford did not appeal Wilke’s denial of his motion at that time, thus not preserving any error the Appeals Court could review.

The Appeals Court ruled that Gifford failed to show that the evidence he sought to obtain from deposing eight police officers who were not going to be called to testify at trial would produce any evidence that couldn’t be obtained through other avenues like reviewing the officers’ body camera video and crime scene reports.

The ruling also found that Gifford’s challenge that the makeup of the jury pool did not include a “fair cross-section” of the population failed because it did not show that an underrepresentation of Hispanic jurors was due to systemic exclusion of the group in the jury-selection process.

“The mere existence of underrepresentation does not establish the causation element required” to sustain the challenge, the Appeals Court ruled.

In his appeal, Gifford also claimed prosecutorial misconduct, alleging that during opening arguments the state told the jury that it was the defendant’s fault that the state did not have the weapon allegedly used during the crime, implying that the defendant had an obligation to provide evidence against himself. He also argued that testimony from Investigator Larry Hedlund in which he said Gifford repeatedly told Hedlund that he would give him evidence of his alibi and innocence of the crime but never followed through implied he had an obligation to provide the state with evidence.

In its reply to the appeal, the state argued that the point of that testimony was not to show the jury that Gifford had to do anything to prove his innocence, but that Gifford repeatedly telling Hedlund he would provide evidence of his innocence and never did shows Gifford was lying to the investigator.

The Appeals Court declined to consider this issue, citing Gifford’s failure to lodge objections at the time of the conduct in order to preserve error for review.

After the Appeals Court ruling, Gifford’s next option would be to apply for further review from the Iowa Supreme Court. The state’s highest court grants just a small fraction of the further review applications it receives.