IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 21-1161

Filed April 13, 2022

MARK DOUGLAS HAASE,

Applicant-Appellant,

vs.

STATE OF IOWA,

Respondent-Appellee.

________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Boone County, John R. Flynn, 

Judge.

Mark Haase appeals the denial of his application for postconviction relief. 

AFFIRMED.

Kevin Hobbs, Johnston, for appellant.

Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Kyle Hanson, Assistant Attorney 

General, for appellee State.

Considered by Bower, C.J., and Vaitheswaran and Chicchelly, JJ.
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CHICCHELLY, Judge.

Mark Haase appeals the denial of his application for postconviction relief

(PCR) concerning his convictions for possession with intent to deliver 

methamphetamine and failure to affix a tax stamp in violation of Iowa Code 

sections 124.401(1)(b)(7) and 453B.12 (2016). He alleges ineffective assistance

of both trial and PCR counsel. Upon our review, we affirm.

I. Background Facts and Proceedings.

Haase’s two charges arose after a search of his home revealed large 

amounts of cash and methamphetamine in November 2016. The warrant 

application to search Haase’s home recounted three backings: 1) text messages 

linking Haase to drug dealing with his neighbor; 2) a concerned mother’s tip about 

her daughter and another man’s theft of drugs and money from Haase’s home, 

both of which were recovered in the alleged amounts from the property of the man

identified; and 3) revelations by Haase’s ex-girlfriend during an interview about 

domestic assault regarding his drug dealing and the location of contraband within 

his home. 

Haase’s trial counsel filed a motion to suppress challenging the search 

warrant based on the ex-girlfriend’s credibility. Because the text messages with 

the neighbor and the mother’s tip were stale in time, the district court 

acknowledged that the probable cause for the search warrant would be lacking

without the ex-girlfriend’s information. However, the district court denied the

motion to suppress. 

During the trial, the State introduced text message statements through 

another officer’s testimony regarding a “phone dump” of the phone belonging to 
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Haase’s neighbor, Dallas Forkner. Law enforcement seized Forkner’s phone 

during an August 2016 traffic stop, and messages indicated that he was heavily 

involved in the illegal distribution of methamphetamine. Text messages with a 

contact labelled “neighbormark” were linked to Haase, as he resides two houses 

away and officers had this phone number on file from previous calls with Haase. 

A jury convicted Haase on both counts.

Haase timely filed for appeal, arguing the district court should have granted 

his motion to suppress the evidence arising from the search warrant. See State v. 

Haase, No. 17-0410, 2018 WL 4922948, at *1 (Iowa Ct. App. Oct. 10, 2018). 

Specifically, he asserted that the affiant police officer “acted with reckless 

disregard for the truth” when attesting to facts in support of the search warrant 

application because he failed to consider the ex-girlfriend’s lack of credibility. Id. 

We agreed with the district court’s reasoning that most informants have 

questionable character issues and that the concerns raised did not demonstrate 

this officer engaged in a reckless disregard for the truth. Id. Therefore, we affirmed 

the denial of Haase’s suppression motion and his judgement and sentence in a 

December 2018 decision. Id. at *2. The Iowa Supreme Court denied his 

application for further review.

Haase timely filed a PCR application, arguing ineffective assistance of 

counsel. This application was denied and now comes before us on appeal.

II. Review.

Because ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims raise constitutional 

issues, we review the denial of such PCR applications de novo. Linn v State, 929 

N.W.2d 717, 729 (Iowa 2019).
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III. Discussion.

“To prevail on an ineffective assistance of counsel claim, the claimant must 

satisfy the two-prong test by proving that his trial counsel failed to perform an 

essential duty and prejudice resulted.” State v. Majors, 940 N.W.2d 372, 391 (Iowa 

2020) (quoting 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)). With regard to the first prong, we presume 

counsel performed competently unless proven otherwise by a preponderance of 

the evidence. Id. Our test is measured objectively against the prevailing 

professional norms. Id. To establish the prejudice required of the second prong, 

“the claimant must prove by a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s failure 

to perform an essential duty, the result of the proceeding would have been 

different.” Id. (citation omitted). Rather than the “more likely than not” standard, 

this second prong requires a showing that “the probability of a different result is 

‘sufficient to undermine [our] confidence in the outcome’ of the trial.” Id. (quoting 

State v. Ary, 877 N.W.2d 686, 705 (Iowa 2016) (alteration in original)).

Haase asserts three theories in support of his ineffective-assistance claim: 

1) the motion to suppress the fruits of the search warrant should have been based 

on the ex-girlfriend’s motivation to lie rather than her “sketchy moral character,”

2) a failure to timely file a demand to confront the State’s witnesses, and 3) a failure 

to make a hearsay objection to text message statements introduced by the State 

from the phone belonging to Haase’s neighbor. While Haase’s PCR counsel did 

not advance all of these theories before the district court, an exception to the 

normal error-preservation rules permits our review. See Dunbar v. State, 515 
5

N.W.2d 12, 14–15 (Iowa 1994) (“[T]he ineffectiveness of [PCR] counsel constitutes 

‘sufficient cause’ under section [822.8] to excuse an applicant’s failure to 

adequately raise an issue in prior proceedings.”). We address each in turn.

A. Suppression.

Haase contends that both trial and PCR counsel did not effectively argue 

the issue of suppressing the search warrant. The suppression issue was at the 

center of Haase’s unsuccessful appeal. See Haase, 2018 WL 4922948, at *1. The 

district court denied Haase PCR because it determined the application was a 

repetition of the suppression arguments made and resolved on direct appeal. 

However, Haase argues that herein lies his PCR counsel’s ineffectiveness 

because the PCR application should have made a different argument. Essentially, 

he asserts that the Franks challenge to the search warrant should have been 

based on his ex-girlfriend’s vendetta against him and motivation to lie rather than 

on her simply not being a “model citizen.” See Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154, 

171 (1978).

Our courts apply the Franks standard to examine the truthfulness of an 

affiant in applying for a search warrant. State v. Niehaus, 452 N.W.2d 184, 186 

(Iowa 1990) (citing Franks, 438 U.S. at 171). This standard requires a defendant 

to demonstrate that the affiant officer “was purposely untruthful with regard to a 

material fact in his or her application for the warrant, or acted with reckless 

disregard for the truth.” Id. (citing Franks, 438 U.S. at 171–72). “Omissions of fact 

constitute misrepresentations only if the omitted facts ‘cast doubt on the existence 

of probable cause.’” State v. Green, 540 N.W.2d 649, 657 (Iowa 1995) (citation 

omitted).
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Here, Haase’s argument is no different from that asserted on direct appeal. 

Like his motion to suppress and direct appeal, his PCR application alleged the 

affiant officer omitted facts bearing on his ex-girlfriend’s reliability—specifically, 

that she was a methamphetamine addict and they had a rocky romantic 

relationship in which he had thrown her out of his house and continued to reside 

with a new, live-in girlfriend. While Haase claims the challenges made before the 

district court and on direct appeal were limited to the ex-girlfriend not being a 

“model citizen” due to her own drug use, Haase’s counsel sufficiently informed 

both our court and those below of her possible motivations against him that went 

beyond her character flaws. 

Specifically, the search warrant application described this informant as 

Haase’s “on again off again girlfriend” and indicated there were multiple incidents 

when the couple had been fighting and physically assaulted each other. The order 

denying the motion to suppress acknowledged, “That Tesdahl and Defendant had 

significant issues in their relationship. She had broken into his house. Haase had 

previously called law enforcement based on problems he had with Tesdahl.” 

Certainly, this was sufficient information to reveal the “vendetta” angle that Haase 

now asserts. Therefore, Haase effectively advances the same theory on the same 

factual basis. See Haase, 2018 WL 4922948, at *1. Accordingly, we find 

relitigation of this issue to be barred. See Holmes v. State, 775 N.W.2d 733, 735 

(Iowa Ct. App. 2009) (“A postconviction proceeding is not intended as a vehicle for 

relitigation, on the same factual basis, of issues previously adjudicated, and the 

principle of res judicata bars additional litigation on this point.”).
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Even if Haase’s current argument could be distinguished, we find there is 

no basis for ineffective assistance of counsel. As explained above, counsel’s 

motion to suppress adequately informed the court of the alleged credibility issues 

undermining the search warrant application. On direct appeal, we agreed with the 

district court’s finding that “[t]here is nothing about the information provided by [the 

ex-girlfriend] or the lack of information about [her] in the warrant application which 

suggests or should have suggested that [her] veracity should be questioned as it 

relates to Haase being in possession of drugs.” Id. (alterations in original). 

Moreover, “only impeachment of the affiant is permitted, not that of a 

nongovernmental informant.” Niehaus, 452 N.W.2d at 187. Haase has not 

demonstrated that the affiant officer purposely or recklessly omitted details about 

the ex-girlfriend. We cannot say that counsel failed to perform an essential duty in 

connection with challenging the search warrant.

B. Confrontation.

Haase faults trial counsel for not timely demanding trial testimony from the 

State’s Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) witnesses, and he faults PCR 

counsel for not raising this accusation against trial counsel. Reports from the DCI

crime lab are admissible at trial without testimony, but the defendant may request 

an employee or technician’s personal appearance by filing at least ten days before 

trial. Iowa Code § 691.2(1), (2). 

Here, the DCI criminalist who tested the drugs did testify at trial. In fact, 

Haase’s counsel cross-examined the criminalist concerning lab procedures, the 

lab’s accreditation, and the specific chemical testing performed. However, 

because Haase’s counsel filed a demand less than ten days before trial, the State 
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did not call the DCI evidence technician who handled the evidence upon its arrival 

at the lab to testify at trial. Haase’s trial counsel argued this omission called the 

chain of custody into question. However, the district court found the State 

established a sufficient foundation for admitting the evidence and specifically 

acknowledged that the confrontation clause was not at issue under the procedure 

followed. See State v. Knight, 852 N.W.2d 273, 279 (Iowa Ct. App. 2014) (“[W]hen 

the record shows the disputed evidence was sent to the DCI crime lab and handled 

in conformity with the rules governing the lab, the district court is entitled to 

presume the evidence was not tampered with during transport to and from the lab 

and while at the lab.”); see also Watson v. State, No. 11-1833, 2013 WL 99862, at 

*6 (Iowa Ct. App. Jan. 9, 2013) (“Had such a request been timely made, the State 

undoubtedly would have had the DCI technician testify at trial. So, at the end of 

the day, it is apparent that [the defendant’s] attorneys could not keep the DCI report 

from the jury on a Confrontation Clause grounds basis.”).

Haase makes a vague argument that a timely filing to confront the State’s 

witnesses might have enabled his counsel “to keep out the [DCI’s] findings 

regarding the seized methamphetamine contraband.” However, there were no 

apparent grounds for doing so. The criminalist’s testimony supported the lab 

results, and Haase points to no evidence undermining the testimony or the results. 

Nor has he presented any allegation, much less indication, of tampering or 

improper handling. Therefore, Haase fails to satisfy his burden of establishing a 

likelihood of a different result. See Majors, 940 N.W.2d at 391. PCR counsel had 

no duty to raise an unfounded confrontation claim, and we reject Haase’s 

ineffective-assistance challenge on this ground.
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C. Hearsay.

Haase also faults trial counsel for failing to make a hearsay objection over 

the text messages entered from his neighbor’s phone, and he faults PCR counsel 

for not raising this accusation against trial counsel. The rule against hearsay 

covers an out-of-court statement offered into evidence to prove the truth of the 

matter asserted. Iowa R. Evid. 5.801(c). We must determine whether “the hearsay 

rule can be found inapplicable here under any theory.” State v. Hilleshiem, 305 

N.W.2d 710, 712 (Iowa 1981). Hearsay does not include an opposing party’s

statement that “[w]as made by the party in an individual or representative capacity.”

Iowa R. Evid. 5.801(d)(2)(A).

The text message statements between Haase and his neighbor fell under 

the non-hearsay classifications. Given the context and the police department’s 

prior association with this number belonging to Haase, we find there is sufficient 

authentication to link the text messages to Haase. See State v. Goodwin, No. 18-

1822, 2020 WL 1551149, at *4 (Iowa Ct. App. Apr. 1, 2020) (“[T]he burden to 

authenticate . . . is not high—only a prima facie showing is required . . . . This 

requirement is satisfied if sufficient proof has been introduced so that a reasonable 

juror could find in favor of authenticity or identification.” (internal citations and 

quotation marks omitted)). Therefore, any of the messages sent by Haase himself 

were admissible as admissions of a party opponent. Second, any of the neighbor’s 

messages sent to Haase were admissible to provide context for his own 

admissions. See Hilleshiem, 305 N.W.2d at 713 (“Statements of one party to a 

conversation may be admitted without regard to their truth or falsity in order to 

show the context in which admissible statements by another party were made.”). 
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Haase’s counsel had no duty to raise a non-meritorious hearsay objection. 

Therefore, Haase’s ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim fails in this regard.

IV. Disposition.

Because Haase failed to prove breach of an essential duty by his trial 

counsel, we find he did not establish ineffective assistance of counsel in 

connection with any of the three grounds asserted in this appeal. We therefore

affirm the district court’s denial of Haase’s PCR application.

AFFIRMED.