IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 14-1052

Filed July 9, 2015

JUSTIN ALAN ROBUCK,

Applicant-Appellant,

vs.

STATE OF IOWA,

Respondent-Appellee.

________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Jasper County, Richard B. Clogg, 

Judge.

Justin Robuck appeals the district court’s denial of his application for 

postconviction relief. AFFIRMED.

Joseph P. Vogel of Vogel Law, P.L.L.C., Des Moines, for appellant.

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

General, Michael K. Jacobsen, County Attorney, and James W. Cleverley Jr., 

Assistant County Attorney, for appellee State.

Considered by Danilson, C.J., and Vaitheswaran and Doyle, JJ.
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DOYLE, J.

Justin Robuck appeals the district court’s denial of his application for 

postconviction relief from his 2008 conviction for murder in the second degree, in 

violation of Iowa Code section 707.3 (2007). Upon our review, we affirm the 

court’s order denying Robuck’s application for postconviction relief.

I. Background Facts and Proceedings

In 2008, following a jury trial, Robuck was convicted of second degree 

murder following the stabbing death of Jerry Pittman II. The following facts 

surrounding the murder were set out in our opinion on direct appeal: 

On the night of Friday, October 5, 2007, Robuck and a group of 

friends, including Tyler Oberhart, Ray Travis, Courtney Hummel, 

and Mishana Cornejo, spent the evening partying together. Earlier 

that evening, Oberhart gave Pittman some Xanax pills in exchange 

for marijuana, and Oberhart later discovered that the marijuana he 

received was actually lawnmower clippings. Around 3:00 a.m., 

October 6, Robuck, Oberhart, Travis, Hummel, and Cornejo, went 

to Pittman’s house in order to “punk him out,” or scare him into 

giving them their marijuana or money back. When they arrived at 

Pittman’s, Robuck, Oberhart, and Travis exited the car, all carrying 

a knife or other weapon. After summoning Pittman to come out of 

the house, they discovered he was in the backyard wielding a knife. 

Threats were exchanged, and Pittman lunged at Oberhart. Pittman 

then went into the garage, purportedly to get the marijuana, but 

instead came out of the garage swinging a PVC pipe and struck 

Oberhart. After wrestling the pipe away from Pittman, Oberhart told 

Pittman, “You better run.” Pittman began running, chased by 

Oberhart and Robuck, both armed with knives, and Travis, armed 

with a rock-like weapon. Upon catching him, Oberhart held him to 

the ground by sitting on his upper body and Robuck sat on 

Pittman’s legs. Both Oberhart and Robuck repeatedly stabbed 

Pittman. A later autopsy would reveal Pittman suffered twenty-nine 

stab wounds. Immediately after the stabbing, the three returned to 

the car with Robuck exclaiming, “I killed him. I killed him. I killed 

him . . . . I stabbed him at least 30 times.” He also said, “He is 

dead. He is dead. He is fricking dead.”

During the altercation, Robuck’s hand was injured. When he 

later sought medical treatment at a hospital, he informed the doctor 

he threw a knife into the air, and as it came back down, the knife 
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stabbed him in the hand. Suspicious of the explanation, the doctor 

contacted the police. Robuck told the police a different story as to 

how his injury occurred. Following an investigation, Robuck and 

Oberhart were charged with first-degree murder. 

State v. Robuck, No. 08-1864, 2009 WL 3775128, at *1 (Iowa Ct. App. Nov. 12, 

2009).

Robuck filed an application for postconviction relief. Among other claims, 

Robuck raised a claim of juror misconduct: “Failure of a juror to allow [Robuck] to 

have the opportunity to full develop his case before establishing a verdict.” 

Zachary Seaman, Robuck’s friend, testified in Robuck’s defense at his criminal 

trial. At the PCR hearing, Seaman testified that during the trial, after the jury was 

sworn in but before he testified, he was waiting in the hallway outside the 

courtroom and overheard a juror say, “I don’t understand why we’re doing this. 

He’s already guilty.” Seaman stated the juror “sounded like he was talking to 

fellow jurors, people that were around him,” but Seaman could not recall if other 

jurors acknowledged the comment. 

Rona Skow, whose daughter was best friends with Robuck, also testified 

at Robuck’s criminal trial. At the PCR hearing, Skow testified she was in the 

hallway sitting by Seaman when she heard a juror comment, “He’s guilty, let’s 

just get it over. I have better things to do.” Skow believed the jury was on the 

way back from lunch on a day during the first week of trial. Skow did not see the 

juror make the comment to anyone else and no one responded to the comment. 

According to Robuck, the juror’s comment made during trial in the hallway 

leading to the courtroom—overheard by two of his witnesses—constitutes juror 

misconduct entitling him to a new trial. The State countered that Robuck failed to 
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prove the juror’s statements were calculated to, and probably did, influence the 

jury’s verdict. Following the hearing, the district court entered an order denying 

Robuck’s claim. Robuck appeals. 

II. Standard of Review

We review the district court’s ruling on an application for postconviction 

relief for correction of errors. See Perez v. State, 816 N.W.2d 354, 356 (Iowa 

2012). Insofar as Robuck’s claim rests on constitutional principles, we review it 

de novo. See State v. Oliver, 812 N.W.2d 636, 639 (Iowa 2012).

III. Discussion

At the outset, the State challenges the timeliness of Robuck’s juror 

misconduct claim.1 The State claims Robuck “was required to raise his jury 

misconduct claim before sentencing in 2008” and Robuck “did not present 

sufficient cause to justify the untimeliness of his challenge” or “prove actual 

prejudice” under Iowa Code section 822.8 (providing that postconviction relief 

may not be granted on claims not asserted in prior applications for relief in the 

absence of a showing of good cause). See Osborn v. State, 573 N.W.2d 917, 

921 (Iowa 1998) (“[A]ny claim not properly raised on direct appeal may not be 

litigated in postconviction unless there is a showing of ‘sufficient reason’ or 

‘cause’ for not properly raising it previously, and of actual prejudice resulting from 

the alleged error.”).

 

1 The State also raised this issue before the district court. Cf. DeVoss v. State, 648 

N.W.2d 56, 63 (Iowa 2002) (“Unquestionably, the State could have urged in the district 

court DeVoss’ failure to raise in her direct appeal her ineffective-assistance-of-counsel 

claim regarding her trial counsel’s failure to pursue the coaching issue at the original 

trial. The State’s failure to do so waives DeVoss’ failure to comply with section 822.8, 

allowing us to proceed to the merits of DeVoss’ postconviction-relief claims.”).
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Robuck presented no evidence regarding when he or his counsel became 

aware of the juror’s comment. He presented no sufficient reason or cause why

he was prevented from making a timely challenge to the juror’s comment. And 

although ineffective assistance of counsel may provide “sufficient reason” or 

“cause” to permit this issue to be raised for the first time in a proceeding for 

postconviction relief, Robuck does not raise his claim alternatively in that guise. 

See Osborn, 573 N.W.2d at 921; also State v. Fountain, 786 N.W.2d 260, 263 

(Iowa 2010) (“Ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims are an exception to the 

traditional error-preservation rules.”). 

Bypassing this error preservation concern in an effort to stave off another 

potential postconviction-relief proceeding, see State v. Taylor, 596 N.W.2d 55, 56 

(Iowa 1999) (bypassing an error-preservation problem and proceeding to the 

merits of the appeal), we conclude Robuck’s claim is unpersuasive. “[I]n order to 

be entitled to a new trial based upon juror misconduct, the 

(1) evidence from the jurors must consist only of objective facts as 

to what actually occurred in or out of the jury room bearing on 

misconduct; (2) the acts or statements complained of must exceed 

tolerable bounds of jury deliberation; and (3) it must appear the 

misconduct was calculated to, and with reasonable probability did, 

influence the verdict.

State v. Webster, ___ N.W.2d. ___, ___, 2015 WL 3814823, at *8 (Iowa 2015) 

(quoting State v. Cullen, 357 N.W.2d 24, 27 (Iowa 1984)); see also Ryan v.

Arneson, 422 N.W.2d 491 (Iowa 1988) (clarifying the first prong of the Cullen test 

by interpreting Iowa Rule of Evidence [5].606(b) to allow statements regarding 

extraneous prejucicial information or outside influence that was brought to bear 
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on the jury, but excluding evidence of internal deliberations of the jury). We 

begin and end our analysis of Robuck’s claim with the third requirement. 

The evidence presented by Robuck on the juror’s comment is far from 

convincing. The evidence came in the form of testimony from two of Robuck’s 

friends who also testified on his behalf at the criminal trial. Although Skow stated 

she heard the juror’s comment while sitting beside Seaman, Skow and Seaman 

gave inconsistent accounts of the substance of the juror’s comment, the day the 

comment was made, and the location of the juror who made the comment. 

Moreover, both Seaman and Skow admitted they did not know the intent of the 

juror’s comment or whether the other jurors even heard the comment, and both 

stated no other juror responded to the comment and the comment was not 

repeated. Additionally, we observe the district court “has a broad discretion in 

ruling on these matters.” Cullen, 357 N.W.2d at 27, see also Webster, ___ 

N.W.2d. at ___, 2015 WL 3814823, at *5 (“We review a denial of a notion for new 

trial based upon juror misconduct or juror bias for an abuse of discretion.”). Had 

this matter been brought to the attention of the trial court in a timely manner, in 

light of the evidence presented at the PCR hearing, we seriously doubt the court 

would have ordered a new trial. 

Upon our review, we conclude Robuck failed to prove the juror’s comment 

“was calculated to, and with reasonable probability did, influence the verdict” and 

his claim of juror misconduct fails. See Webster, ___ N.W.2d at ___, 2015 WL 

3814823, at *10. The PCR court did not err in denying Robuck’s application for 

postconviction relief. We therefore affirm.

AFFIRMED.