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IN THE SUPREME COURT OF IOWA
No. 24 / 05-1563 Filed May 4, 2007 STATE OF IOWA, Appellee, vs. HARLAN MOTT, JR. Appellant. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------HARLAN MOTT, JR., Plaintiff, vs. IOWA DISTRICT COURT FOR POLK COUNTY, Defendant.

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, Joel D. Novak (criminal) and Gregory A. Hulse (contempt), Judges.

Appellant contends the district court erred in ordering his imprisonment in the county jail instead of his commitment to the custody of the Iowa Department of Corrections. WRIT ANNULLED; AFFIRMED.

Mark C. Smith, State Appellate Defender, and Dennis D. Hendrickson, Assistant State Appellate Defender, for appellant.

2 Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Richard J. Bennett, Assistant Attorney General, John P. Sarcone, County Attorney, and Steve Foritano, Assistant County Attorney, for appellee.

3 HECHT, Justice. This case requires us to determine whether Harlan Mott, who was sentenced to a jail term of one year in the county jail for a misdemeanor assault conviction and later ordered to consecutively serve an additional 150 days in a county jail as punishment for contempt committed during the trial on the assault charge, should be incarcerated in the county jail or committed to the custody of the director of the Iowa Department of Corrections. Mott claims his terms of imprisonment for assault and

contempt constitute a "continuous term of imprisonment" in excess of one year for which the district court must commit him to the custody of the director of the Iowa Department of Corrections. The State contends the district court correctly ordered Mott confined in county jail because contempt may only be punished by imprisonment in a county jail pursuant to Iowa Code section 665.4 (2005). For the reasons that follow, we affirm the district court's order requiring Mott's confinement in the county jail and annul the writ. I. Background Facts and Proceedings.

On August 29, 2005, a jury found Harlan Mott not guilty of tampering with a witness and guilty of assault causing bodily injury. The district court sentenced Mott to one year in the Polk County jail. Mott filed a notice of appeal. A separate contempt proceeding followed as a consequence of an outburst by Mott, who screamed and sang profanity directed at the court on the second day of the criminal trial. The district court found, in an order filed on September 28, 2005, that Mott's outburst constituted contempt, in violation of sections 665.2(1) and 665.2(2). The court imposed a 150-day

4 term of imprisonment in the Polk County jail, to run consecutively to the sentence imposed in the underlying criminal action. On October 21, Mott filed a pro se petition for writ of certiorari alleging the court was statutorily required to commit him to the custody of the director of the Department of Corrections rather than order his imprisonment in the county jail. See Iowa Code

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