IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 16-1978

Filed February 7, 2018

LANCE RUSSELL DIXON,

Applicant-Appellant,

vs.

STATE OF IOWA,

Respondent-Appellee.

________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, Michael D. Huppert, 

Judge.

Lance Dixon appeals the district court’s summary dismissal of his fourth 

application for postconviction relief following his 2001 conviction for first-degree 

murder. AFFIRMED.

Christine E. Branstad of Branstad Law, P.L.L.C., Des Moines, for appellant.

Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Sharon K. Hall, Assistant Attorney 

General, for appellee State.

Considered by Danilson, C.J., and Vaitheswaran and Bower, JJ.
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VAITHESWARAN, Judge.

In Heemstra v. State, 721 N.W.2d 549, 558 (Iowa 2006), the Iowa Supreme 

Court reversed a first-degree murder conviction that was partially based on the 

statutory alternative of killing “another person while participating in a forcible 

felony.” See Iowa Code § 707.2(1)(b) (2001). The court held “if the act causing 

willful injury is the same act that causes the victim’s death, the former is merged 

into the murder and therefore cannot serve as the predicate felony for felonymurder purposes.” Heemstra, 721 N.W.2d at 558. The court declined to apply the 

holding retroactively, stating, “The rule of law announced in this case regarding the 

use of willful injury as a predicate felony for felony-murder purposes shall be 

applicable only to the present case and those cases not finally resolved on direct 

appeal in which the issue has been raised in the district court.” Id.

A postconviction relief applicant whose conviction became final four years 

before Heemstra was decided appeals the summary disposition of his fourth 

postconviction relief application. He argues a recent United States Supreme Court 

opinion requires retroactive application of Heemstra.

I. Background Proceedings

A jury found Lance Dixon guilty of first-degree murder in connection with a 

1999 shooting. This court affirmed his judgment and sentence in 2001, and 

procedendo issued shortly thereafter. See State v. Dixon, No. 00-829, 2001 WL 

1450991, at *6 (Iowa Ct. App. Nov. 16, 2001). 

Dixon filed three postconviction relief applications, all unsuccessful. See 

Dixon v. State, No. 12-0499, 2013 WL 3291837, at *1 (Iowa Ct. App. June 26, 

2013). In 2014, Dixon filed a fourth application alleging, “Heemstra v. State, 721 
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N.W.2d at 558 and State v. Nguyen No. 10-2037 demand when a jury relied on a 

willful injury instruction to find a defendant guilty the conviction cannot stand.”

The State moved for summary judgment and dismissal on the ground the 

application was “neither within three years of the Heemstra decision nor within 

three years of the procedendo of his direct appeal” and, accordingly, was “timebarred.” Meanwhile, Dixon amended his petition to allege a new “ground of fact 

and or law that require Heemstra to be applied retroactively.” He cited “Welch v.

United States, No. 15-6418 April 2016 and Montgomery v. Louisiana, No. 14-280 

January 2016.” Following a non-evidentiary hearing, the postconviction court 

granted the State’s motion for summary disposition. Dixon appealed.

II. Ground-of-Law-Exception to Section 822.3 Time Bar

Iowa Code section 822.3 (2013) states postconviction relief 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,” but “this 

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

within the applicable time period.” Dixon’s fourth postconviction relief application 

was filed well outside the three-year limitations period.

Dixon’s application, then, had to fall within the “ground of fact or law”

exception to the time bar to allow consideration of the merits. In his argument to 

the district court, Dixon paid lip service to the exception but did not address how 

his case fell within it. Instead, he pivoted to the merits of his claim, asserting 

Heemstra should be retroactively applied to his case. He does the same thing on 

appeal, arguing Welch v. United States, 136 S. Ct. 1257 (2016), requires the 

district court to apply the holding of Heemstra retroactively.
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Dixon conflates two inquiries: (1) is Heemstra an opinion that implicates the 

“ground of law” exception to the time bar? and (2) should Heemstra be applied 

retroactively to Dixon’s case? As the Iowa Supreme Court made clear in Nguyen 

v. State (Nguyen I), 829 N.W.2d 183 (Iowa 2013), these are distinct issues. 

In Nguyen I, a postconvicton relief applicant who received the same felonymurder jury instruction that was invalidated in Heemstra argued Heemstra should 

be applied retroactively. 829 N.W.2d at 186. The district court granted the State’s 

motion for summary disposition. Id. The court concluded the “ground of law”

exception to the time bar did not apply because “the line of cases” leading up to 

Heemstra “would have alerted trial counsel” to the argument made in Heemstra 

and, accordingly, the question “was a ground that could have been urged” during 

the three-year limitations period. Id.

The Iowa Supreme Court disagreed with this reasoning. The court stated 

“a ground of law that had 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. at 188. The court 

implied the ground-of-law exception could be raised within three years of the lawchanging decision rather than three years from when procedendo issued in the 

direct appeal, as set forth in section 822.3. Id. Because Nguyen filed his 

posconviction relief application within three years of Heemstra, the court allowed 

him to invoke the “ground of law” exception to the three-year limitations period. Id. 

The court reversed the district court’s summary disposition of the postconviction 

relief application and “remand[ed] for further proceedings on whether retroactive 

application of Heemstra is required by the equal protection, due process, and 
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separation of powers clauses of the Iowa Constitution, or the Equal Protection 

Clause of the United States Constitution.” Id. at 189. In short, the court (1) implied 

a postconviction relief applicant could rely on the “ground of law” exception to the 

time bar for three years after a law changing decision, (2) held Heemstra was a 

law changing decision implicating the “ground of law” exception to the statute of 

limitations, (3) found Nguyen filed his application within three years of Heemstra, 

and (4) held the district court needed to consider the merits of Nguyen’s claim that 

retroactive application of Heemstra was constitutionally mandated. See id. at 186, 

188, 189.

Nguyen II essentially reaffirmed Nguyen I’s statute-of-limitations analysis. 

Nguyen v. State (Nguyen II), 878 N.W.2d 744, 751 (Iowa 2016). The court 

concluded an ineffective-assistance claim premised on Heemstra was “not timebarred” where the postconviction relief application was filed within three years of 

Heemstra and a pro se brief articulated the common-law “framework for evaluating 

the retroactive application of state decisions.” Id. As in Nguyen I, the court 

addressed the statute-of-limitations hurdle before addressing the question of 

retroactivity. See id. at 751-52. Only after finding the postconviction relief 

application was timely filed because it fell within the “ground of law” exception to 

the time bar did the court proceed to the “merits of the ineffective-assistance-ofcounsel claim,” which sought retroactive application of Heemstra. Id. at 753-54. 

Welch, 136 S. Ct. at 1265, cited by Dixon, implicates the merits of his claim. 

The Court there held a prior opinion finding a statutory provision void for 

vagueness was “a substantive decision and so has retroactive effect under Teague
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[v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288 (1989)] in cases on collateral review.” Welch, 136 S. Ct. at

1265. The opinion has no bearing on our statute-of-limitations analysis. 

That analysis turns on whether Dixon filed his fourth postconviction 

application within the implied limitations period of three years from the Heemstra

decision. He did not. Because he did not, his application was time-barred, and 

the postconviction court could not reach the retroactivity claim. 

We affirm the postconviction court’s summary disposition of Dixon’s fourth 

postconviction relief application.

AFFIRMED.