IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 19-1323

Filed December 16, 2020

MATTHEW JANDREAU,

Applicant-Appellant,

vs.

STATE OF IOWA,

Respondent-Appellee.

________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Plymouth County, Tod Deck, Judge.

Matthew Jandreau appeals the summary dismissal of his application for 

postconviction relief. AFFIRMED.

Drew H. Kouris, Council Bluffs, for appellant.

Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Sheryl Soich, Assistant Attorney 

General, for appellee State.

Considered by Bower, C.J., and May and Ahlers, JJ.
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MAY, Judge.

Matthew Jandreau appeals the dismissal of his application for 

postconviction relief (PCR). We affirm.

I. Background

In March 2012, Jandreau was charged with burglary in the first degree, 

kidnapping in the third degree, assault with intent to commit sexual abuse, 

attempted burglary in the second degree, operating a motor vehicle without the 

owner’s consent, and criminal mischief in the third degree. A jury convicted 

Jandreau on all counts. The district court sentenced him to prison. This court 

affirmed his convictions but concluded his conviction for assault with intent to 

commit sexual abuse should merge into his conviction for burglary in the first 

degree. State v. Jandreau, No. 13-0031, 2014 WL 667690, at *1 (Iowa Ct. App. 

Feb. 19, 2014). So we vacated his sentence for assault with intent to commit 

sexual abuse and remanded. Id. at *6. Procedendo issued on April 21, 2014.

About three years and seven months later, on December 1, 2017, the Iowa 

Supreme Court issued its opinion in State v. Jonas, 904 N.W.2d 566 (Iowa 2017). 

Jonas dealt with jury selection. See generally 904 N.W.2d at 571–84. It held that 

prejudice is presumed—and automatic reversal is required—when (1) the district 

court improperly denies a challenge for cause; (2) the defendant “specifically ask[s] 

for an additional peremptory challenge of a particular juror after exhausting his 

peremptory challenges” under the Iowa Rules of Criminal Procedure; and (3) “the 

district court denies the additional peremptory challenge.” Id. at 583.

On August 22, 2018, Jandreau commenced this PCR action. The State 

filed a motion to dismiss, arguing Jandreau’s application was filed outside the 
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three-year limitation period under Iowa Code section 822.3 (2018). Jandreau 

resisted. He argued the Jonas decision created a new ground of law that he could 

not have asserted within the three-year period. The district court rejected 

Jandreau’s argument and granted the State’s motion. Jandreau now appeals.

II. Standard of Review

“Our review of the court’s ruling on the State’s statute-of-limitations defense 

is for correction of errors of law.” Nguyen v. State, 829 N.W.2d 183, 186 (Iowa 

2013) (quoting Harrington v. State, 659 N.W.2d 509, 519 (Iowa 2003)). “Thus, we 

will affirm if the trial court’s findings of fact are supported by substantial evidence 

and the law was correctly applied.” Id. (citation omitted).

III. Analysis

PCR actions are governed by Iowa Code chapter 822. We find the code’s 

meaning in its words. See Doe v. State, 943 N.W.2d 608, 610 (Iowa 2020) (noting 

“in questions of statutory interpretation, ‘[w]e do not inquire what the legislature 

meant; we ask only what the statute means’” and “[t]his is necessarily a textual 

inquiry as only the text of a piece of legislation is enacted into law” (first alteration 

in original) (citation omitted)); State v. Childs, 898 N.W.2d 177, 184 (Iowa 2017)

(“Our court ‘may not . . . enlarge or otherwise change the terms of a statute as the 

legislature adopted it.’ ‘When a proposed interpretation of a statute would require 

the court to “read something into the law that is not apparent from the words

chosen by the legislature,” the court will reject it.’” (citations omitted)); Hansen v. 

Haugh, 149 N.W.2d 169, 172 (Iowa 1967) (“It is not the function of courts to 

legislate and they are constitutionally prohibited from doing so.” (citing Iowa Const. 

art. III, § 1)); Holland v. State, 115 N.W.2d 161, 164 (Iowa 1962) (“Ours not to 
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reason why, ours but to read, and apply. It is our duty to accept the law as the 

legislative body enacts it.”); Moss v. Williams, 133 N.W. 120, 121 (Iowa 1911) (“We 

must look to the statute as it is written . . . .”).

Section 822.3 contains a time limit.1It states in relevant part:

All [PCR2] applications must be filed within three years from the date 

the conviction or decision is final or, in the event of an appeal, from 

the date the writ of procedendo is issued. However, this limitation 

does not apply to a ground of fact or law that could not have been 

raised within the applicable time period.

Iowa Code § 822.3.

Through this text, the legislature required most PCR claims to “be filed 

within three years from the date the conviction or decision is final or, in the event 

of an appeal, from the date the writ of procedendo is issued.” Id. But the legislature 

created an exception for claims based on “ground[s] of fact or law that could not

have been raised within the” three-year period. Id. (emphasis added). The threeyear “limitation does not apply” to those claims. See id. But see Penticoff v. State, 

No. 19-0975, 2020 WL 5229186, at *2 (Iowa Ct. App. Sept. 2, 2020) (citing cases 

that recognize an implied limitation period that runs from the appearance of a new 

ground of fact or law).

For Jandreau, the three-year limitation period began on April 21, 2014,

when his unsuccessful direct appeal ended with the issuance of procedendo. But

 

1 The limitation contained in section 822.3 was enacted in 1984. See Sahinovic v. 

State, 940 N.W.2d 357, 359 (Iowa 2020) (citing 1984 Iowa Acts ch. 1193, § 1 (then 

codified at Iowa Code § 663A.3 (1985))); Brewer v. Iowa Dist. Ct., 395 N.W.2d 

841, 842 (Iowa 1986). Before then, there was “no deadline for” PCR claims. See

Sahinovic, 940 N.W.2d at 359.

2 There is a special exception for applicants “seeking relief under section 822.2, 

subsection 1, paragraph ‘f.’” Iowa Code § 822.3. Because Jandreau does not 

seek relief under section 822.2(1)(f), this exception is not relevant here.
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this PCR action was not filed until August 2018, more than three years later. So, 

at least on its face, this action appears untimely.

As noted, though, Jandreau claims the three-year limitation does not apply. 

This is so, he contends, because the Iowa Supreme Court’s 2017 decision in Jonas

provides a “ground of . . . law that could not have been raised within the” threeyear period. See Iowa Code § 822.3.

Our review of Jandreau’s argument is governed by Nguyen. Nguyen

explained that a legal argument “could not have been raised” during the three-year 

limitation period if doing so would have been “fruitless” because the argument 

lacked “a possibility of success” at that time. 829 N.W.2d at 188 (citation omitted).

“[A] ground of law that [has] been clearly and repeatedly rejected by controlling 

precedent from the court with final decision-making authority is one that ‘could not 

have been raised’ as that phrase is used in section 822.3.” Id. Mere “clarification[s] 

of the law” or “application[s] of preexisting law” do not qualify. Id. (quoting Perez 

v. State, 816 N.W.2d 354, 360–61 (Iowa 2012)); see also Penticoff, 2020 WL 

5229186, at *2 (citing Nguyen and noting the exception does not apply to “a mere 

‘clarification of the law’ or ‘an application of preexisting law’” (citation omitted)). 

Applying these principles here, we cannot conclude Jonas created a 

“ground of . . . law that could not have been raised within the” three-years following 

April 2014, when procedendo issued in Jandreau’s prior appeal. See Iowa Code 

§ 822.3. Jonas did not announce a rule that had been “clearly and repeatedly 

rejected by controlling precedent from the court with final decision-making 

authority.” Nguyen, 829 N.W.2d at 188. Indeed, Jonas did not overrule any prior 

supreme court decision. Jonas expressly confirmed that State v. Neuendorf, 509 
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N.W.2d 743, 746 (Iowa 1993), in which the supreme court held prejudice would 

not be presumed from the improper denial of a challenge for cause and the 

resulting waste of a peremptory challenge3, “remains good law” in most cases.4

904 N.W.2d at 583. 

Still, it is fair to say that Jonas constituted a development in our law. It 

limited Neuendorf by recognizing a set of cases—those in which a defendant 

“identifies a particular juror for an additional peremptory challenge [but] the district 

court denies the additional peremptory challenge”—in which prejudice will be

presumed. See id.

Even so, we cannot say it would have been “fruitless”—or lacking a 

“possibility of success”—for Jandreau to have argued that the principles 

recognized in Jonas should apply in his case.5 See Nguyen, 829 N.W.2d at 188. 

 

3

In Neuendorf, 509 N.W.2d at 747, the supreme court held

that partiality of a juror may not be made the basis for reversal in 

instances in which that juror has been removed through exercise of 

a peremptory challenge. Any claim that the jury that did serve in the 

case was not impartial must be based on matters that appear of 

record. Prejudice will no longer be presumed from the fact that the 

defendant has been forced to waste a peremptory challenge.

4 To be more precise, Jonas, 904 N.W.2d at 583, confirmed Neuendorf continues 

to govern where “the defendant does not specifically ask for an additional 

peremptory challenge of a particular juror after exhausting his peremptory 

challenges under the rule.” 

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Indeed, Jandreau could have reasonably argued—and with a reasonable chance 

of success—for the wholesale abandonment of Neuendorf. The defendant in 

Jonas made that very argument in his appellant’s brief, which was filed on 

September 14, 2016. Appellant’s Brief and Argument at 1, Jonas, 904 N.W.2d 566 

(No. 15-1560), 2016 WL 11201014, at *1. He argued the court should

overrule State v. Neuendorf, 509 N.W.2d 743 (Iowa 1993) and return 

to the previously longstanding rule under State v. Beckwith, 46 

N.W.2d 20 (Iowa 1951) and State v. Reed, 208 N.W. 308 (Iowa 1926) 

that prejudice is presumed when a defendant is forced to use a 

peremptory strike against a prospective juror that the district court 

should have struck for cause.
7

Seeds of Jonas had already been planted through the supreme court’s decision in 

State v. Mootz, 808 N.W.2d 207, 226 (Iowa 2012). Mootz adopted “an automatic 

reversal rule” under which prejudice is presumed when an “erroneous ruling on a 

reverse-Batson challenge[

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] leads to the denial of one of the defendant’s 

peremptory challenges.” 808 N.W.2d at 226. And as the PCR court explained:

The holding in Jonas simply and logically extends the presumption 

of prejudice in Mootz to a situation where there is denial of a 

peremptory challenge requested by a defendant after an improper 

denial of a request to strike a juror [for cause.] . . . [T]he holding in 

Mootz, rendered prior to Jandreau’s conviction, would not 

discourage [Jandreau from] raising the issue addressed in Jonas. It 

would do the opposite and indicate that there were unsettled 

nuances of the applicable law that the court of final decision-making 

authority was prepared to address plausibly, if not likely, in 

[Jandreau’s] favor.

We agree with the PCR court’s reasoning. And we agree that, in light of 

Mootz, the principles recognized in Jonas were not “ground[s] of . . . law that could 

not have been raised” by Jandreau “within” his three-year limitation period, which 

ran from April 21, 2014 to April 21, 2017. See Iowa Code § 822.3.

A final point: In his briefing, Jandreau focuses on the state of the law—the

“standard”—under which “Jandreau’s trial attorney would have operated” at the 

time of Jandreau’s trial in November 2012. This focus could be important when 

 

Id. at *13.

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“In Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, (1986), the Supreme Court held that a 

prosecutor could not use his peremptory challenges to engage in purposeful racial 

discrimination.” Mootz, 808 N.W.2d at 214–15. “A challenge to the defendant’s 

use of strikes based on purposeful racial discrimination is known as a ‘reverseBatson challenge.’” Id. at 215 (quoting United States v. Thompson, 528 F.3d 110, 

115 (2d Cir. 2008)). In Mootz, the district court prohibited a defendant from using 

a preemptory strike against a juror who was identified in the opinion as Hispanic. 

Id. at 213. It appears the district court believed the defendant was striking the juror 

on racial grounds. See id.
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deciding whether trial counsel provided ineffective assistance.

7 After all, Iowa 

courts “do not expect counsel to anticipate changes in the law, and counsel will not 

be found ineffective for a lack of ‘clairvoyance.’” Doolin, 942 N.W.2d at 507 

(citation omitted). Rather, “where the merit of a particular issue is not clear from 

Iowa law, the test ‘is whether a normally competent attorney would have concluded 

that the question . . . was not worth raising.’” Id. (citation omitted). This will 

depend, at least in part, on the state of the law during the underlying criminal action

when trial counsel was representing the defendant. Cf. id. (noting counsel is not 

ineffective for failing to anticipate changes in the law and suggesting counsel only 

has a duty to know the current state of the law).

In this appeal, though, we address a different question. The sole issue here

is whether this case is time-barred by section 822.3. This depends on whether 

Jandreau’s current PCR action is based on “a ground of . . . law that could not

have been raised” by filing a PCR application “within” the “three years” after “the 

writ of procedendo [was] issued” in his direct appeal, that is, the three years 

between April 21, 2014 and April 21, 2017. See Iowa Code § 822.3. We believe 

it is not. So we conclude this case is time-barred.

IV. Conclusion

The principles recognized in Jonas were not “ground[s] of . . . law that could 

not have been raised within” Jandreau’s three-year limitation period. See id.

 

7 To establish a claim of ineffective-assistance of counsel, a claimant must prove 

two elements: (1) “trial counsel failed to perform an essential duty” and 

(2) “prejudice resulted.” State v. Doolin, 942 N.W.2d 500, 507 (Iowa 2020) (citing 

State v. Clay, 824 N.W.2d 488, 495 (Iowa 2012) (describing the two-prong test for 

ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims set out in Strickland v. Washington, 466 

U.S. 668, 687 (1984))).
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(emphasis added). The district court was right to conclude this action is timebarred.

AFFIRMED.