State of Iowa v. Tianthony Quintez Keller

── State of Iowa v. Tianthony Quintez Keller ── Court: Court of Appeals of Iowa Date: May 13, 2026 Category: General IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA _______________ No. 25-0177 Filed May 13, 2026 _______________ State of Iowa, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. Tianthony Quintez Keller, Defendant–Appellant. _______________ Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Des Moines County, The Honorable John M. Wright, Judge. _______________ AFFIRMED _______________ Ryan J. Mitchell of Orsborn, Mitchell & Goedken, P.C., Ottumwa, attorney for appellant. Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Martha E. Trout, Assistant Attorney General, attorneys for appellee. _______________ Considered without oral argument by Tabor, C.J., Langholz, J., and Vogel, S.J. Opinion by Langholz, J. 1 LANGHOLZ, Judge. After watching a car barrel through an intersection as the stoplight turned red, a uniformed deputy sheriff in a marked law-enforcement vehicle pulled behind the car and activated his siren and flashing red-and-blue lights. Yet as the deputy followed the car for over ninety seconds—traveling a mile and through three turns—the car failed to stop. About thirty seconds into the pursuit, the car’s emergency hazard lights began flashing. And the car finally stopped only after pulling onto a residential property where the car’s driver, Tianthony Keller, lived. After arresting Keller, law-enforcement officers also found marijuana in the car. And Keller was eventually charged with eluding while exceeding the speed limit by twenty-five miles per hour or more—a class “D” felony—and possession of marijuana, first offense—a serious misdemeanor. See Iowa Code §§ 321.279(2)(a), 124.401(5)(a)–(b) (2024). A jury convicted Keller of a lesser-included misdemeanor eluding offense (which did not require proof of Keller’s speed), see Iowa Code § 321.279(1)(a), and the possession-of-marijuana offense. Keller appeals both convictions. He argues that a prosecutor’s statement during jury selection was prosecutorial misconduct entitling him to a new trial on both offenses. And he challenges the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his eluding conviction, claiming that he initially did not see the deputy and then activated his hazard lights to let the deputy know his car had mechanical issues and might not have started again if he had stopped on the side of the road. Because Keller did not object to the prosecutor’s statement, he failed to preserve error on his claim of prosecutorial misconduct. Binding supreme court precedent forecloses his argument that we should adopt the plain-error doctrine and reach that issue anyway. And substantial evidence supports his eluding conviction. We thus affirm Keller’s convictions. 2 I. Prosecutorial Misconduct Keller first argues that the prosecutor engaged in prosecutorial misconduct when, at the start of jury selection, the prosecutor told the panel of prospective jurors: As the Judge mentioned, this is a fairly short trial. So for those of you who thought you might be coming in here and spending two weeks, O.J. style, no. This will be a relatively short trial. We do hope to be done by noon tomorrow. There are no guarantees, just that it’s the hope. According to Keller, “mentioning the O.J. Simpson trial immediately prejudice[d] the jury against Mr. Keller” because there were “significant similarities” in the two cases: “Both Mr. Keller and O.J. Simpson are African-American and they were both involved in allege