IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 18-1467

Filed April 29, 2020

THOMAS DESHAWN HOLMES,

Applicant-Appellant,

vs.

STATE OF IOWA,

Respondent-Appellee.

________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Black Hawk County, David P. 

Odekirk, Judge.

Thomas Holmes appeals from the dismissal of his application for 

postconviction relief. AFFIRMED.

Christopher Kragnes Sr. of Kragnes & Associates, P.C., Des Moines, for 

appellant.

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

General, for appellee State.

Considered by Bower, C.J., and Greer and Ahlers, JJ.
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AHLERS, Judge.

Following a bench trial in 2000, Thomas Holmes was found guilty of firstdegree kidnapping and first-degree robbery. He was sentenced to life in prison 

without parole on the kidnapping charge to be served concurrently with an 

indeterminate twenty-five-year sentence on the robbery charge. Holmes 

appealed, and his judgment and sentences were affirmed. State v. Holmes, No. 

00-0950, 2001 WL 1577584, at *6 (Iowa Ct. App. Dec. 12, 2001). Holmes later 

filed a postconviction-relief (PCR) action, which was denied by the district court 

and affirmed on appeal. Holmes v. State, 775 N.W.2d 733, 737 (Iowa Ct. App. 

2009).

In July 2012, Holmes initiated a two-pronged attack on his kidnapping 

conviction. In his criminal case, he filed a motion to correct an illegal sentence, 

arguing his kidnapping sentence was illegal. He also initiated another PCR action, 

arguing his kidnapping conviction was illegal. The basis for both attacks was the 

same, namely that the district court presiding over his trial, both in the verbal

announcement that Holmes was found guilty and in the written order that followed, 

cited to nonexistent sections of the Iowa Code, specifically Iowa Code section 

710.2(3) and (4) (2000). The district court combined the two proceedings attacking 

the kidnapping conviction and sentence. In the combined proceedings, the State 

acknowledged the error but pointed out that the error was clearly a clerical error in 

which the district court erroneously cited the nonexistent code section instead of 

the intended code section 710.1(3) and (4). The district court entered an order 

correcting the clerical error, denied the motion to correct an illegal sentence, and 

dismissed the PCR action as time-barred. On appeals from both rulings, the 
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rulings were affirmed. Holmes v. State, 12-2301, 2015 WL 4936382, at *2 (Iowa 

Ct. App. Aug. 19, 2015) (affirming dismissal of the PCR action as being timebarred); see also State v. Holmes, 12-2312, 2013 WL 6405363, at *2 (Iowa Ct. 

App. Dec. 5, 2013) (affirming the denial of the motion to correct an illegal sentence 

on the basis the alleged error was “unambiguously clerical in nature” and had 

already been corrected by the district court’s order).

In this current PCR action, Holmes raises the very same issues raised in 

the two 2012 proceedings, namely that the clerical error regarding the kidnapping 

code sections requires vacation of his kidnapping conviction and sentence. His 

claims fail for the same reasons they failed last time, in addition to now failing on 

the principle of res judicata. See State v. Weitzel, 192 N.W.2d 762, 764 (Iowa 

1971) (holding a PCR proceeding is not intended as a vehicle to relitigate issues 

previously adjudicated). We affirm the district court without further opinion, as a 

full opinion would not augment or clarify existing case law. See Iowa Ct. R. 

21.26(1)(e). Any other issues mentioned in the briefs filed by Holmes and his 

counsel are deemed waived for failing to cite authority or make arguments in 

support of them. See Iowa R. App. P. 6.903(2)(g)(3).

AFFIRMED.