DES MOINES – After a jury found a Nora Springs man guilty of inflicting a head injury upon a toddler, a judge sent him to prison for up to 10 years and now he has lost his appeal.
Tylan DeBeir, age 26, appeals the judgment and sentence entered following his conviction of child endangerment causing serious injury, claiming his trial counsel was ineffective in failing to object to a jury instruction that erroneously marshaled one alternative for committing an act of child endangerment. The Iowa Court of Appeals ruled that even assuming counsel breached an essential duty in failing to object to the wording of the marshaling instruction, DeBeir was not prejudiced because the result would have been the same if counsel had objected. Accordingly, his ineffective-assistance claim failed.
According to court documents, DeBeir lived with his girlfriend, Megan, and cared for her children while she worked. When Megan left for work in the early morning hours of March 30, 2013, her thirteen-month-old son, R.C., was asleep in a portable crib located near the bed Megan and DeBeir shared. Approximately two hours after Megan left for work, DeBeir sent Megan a frantic message about R.C. The text message read: “He woke me up by flipping out of [his crib] and now he’s acting so weird! he [fell] off the bed by the window! he’s just crying he won’t take his bottle and he’s just [screaming]! i’m scared!!!!!” Megan immediately called DeBeir and heard R.C. crying in a way that was “not normal” but rather was “like a scared, hurt cry.” DeBeir told Megan that R.C. had fallen out of the portable crib and would not stop crying. R.C. was transported to the hospital and then transferred to the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics pediatric intensive care unit for treatment of neurological injuries.
DeBeir consistently maintained that on the morning in question, he awoke after hearing a “thud” and found R.C. had fallen out of his crib. He opined that R.C. may have hit his head on the window sill as he fell. Dr. Resmiye Oral, a pediatrician at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics who is board certified in child abuse pediatrics, examined R.C. and opined that R.C.’s injuries did not comport with DeBeir’s explanation of how the injuries occurred. Rather, Dr. Oral concluded R.C. had suffered abusive head trauma “that involved rotational acceleration deceleration forces as in shaking with or without an impact from a soft surface.” Dr. Oral also did not believe it was possible for R.C. to fall in the manner DeBeir described given the size of the portable crib, R.C.’s height, and the crib’s location in the bedroom.
The State charged DeBeir with child endangerment causing serious injury. After trial, a jury found DeBeir guilty as charged. He was adjudicated guilty and sentenced to a term of not more than ten years in prison.
