Iowa Appeals Court upholds conviction in 2011 fatal collision

TIFFIN - The Iowa Court of Appeals has upheld a two-year prison sentence for a former Clear Creek Amana student who caused a 2011 car crash that killed a 14-year-old girl.

Zachary Swenka, 21, of North Liberty, entered an Alford plea to involuntary manslaughter, an aggravated misdemeanor punishable by up to two years in prison and a fine of $6,250.

Judge Stephen Gerard sentenced Swenka Oct. 24 to the maximum prison term, saying Swenka made a conscious decision to drive at speeds near 100 mph when he drove five students home from a cross-country practice Oct. 17, 2011.

Swenka's car crossed the centerline and collided with an oncoming minivan. Part of the left rear section of Swenka's car was torn off, ejecting and killing Mackenzie Lown. Swenka and the other passengers in his car were injured, as were two people in the minivan.

Swenka appealed his conviction and sentence, arguing Gerard improperly considered Swenka's prior driving activities referenced by the victim's parents during the sentencing hearing. Swenka also claimed his guilty plea was involuntary.

The Court of Appeals disagreed on both points.

'Although the district court sympathetically acknowledged the parents of the victim and thanked them for their statements, there is no evidence the district court relied on their references to unproved conduct in imposing sentence,” the court wrote in the five-page ruling issued Wednesday.

The Court also pointed to several places in Swenka's plea in which he acknowledged the plea was made 'voluntarily, intelligently and of Swenka's own free will.”

Swenka, who has been free on appeal bond since Nov. 21, has 20 days to ask the Iowa Supreme Court to review the Court of Appeals ruling. If Swenka takes no action, he would be required to resume his sentence after 27 days, Johnson County Attorney Janet Lyness said.