IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 14-1632

Filed August 5, 2015

TERRY HOUSTON,

Applicant-Appellant,

vs.

STATE OF IOWA,

Respondent-Appellee.

________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Clinton County, Paul L. Macek, 

Judge.

Terry Houston appeals from the denial of his application for postconviction 

relief. AFFIRMED.

Les M. Blair III and Taryn R. Purcell of Blair and Fitzsimmons, P.C., 

Dubuque, for appellant.

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

General, Mike Wolf, County Attorney, and Robin L. Strausser, Assistant County 

Attorney, for appellee State.

Considered by Danilson, C.J., and Vaitheswaran and Doyle, JJ.
2

DOYLE, J.

A jury found Terry Houston guilty of operating a motor vehicle while 

intoxicated (OWI). Houston appealed. This court affirmed his conviction. 

Houston then filed an application for postconviction relief (PCR) asserting his trial 

counsel was ineffective in failing to raise and assert an involuntary-intoxication 

defense.1 The PCR court denied Houston’s application. Houston appeals. We 

affirm.

I. Background Facts and Procedure

Houston was charged with an aggravated misdemeanor—operating a 

motor vehicle while under the influence of an alcoholic beverage or other drug, 

second offense, in violation of Iowa Code section 321J.2(1)(a) and (2)(b) (2011). 

The background facts were succinctly set forth in our previous opinion as follows:

At trial, the officer who conducted a traffic stop because Houston 

was going forty-nine miles per hour in a thirty-five-mile-per-hour 

zone testified Houston’s breath smelled of alcohol and that Houston 

subsequently failed several field sobriety tests. Houston testified 

that he drank one cup of coffee with cherry brandy over several 

hours while working with Berryman’s Carburetor Cleaner in an 

enclosed space. Houston testified he “found this out later . . .

[Berryman’s] do[es]n’t use chlorinated solvents anymore, because 

of the chemical reactions that people have.” The defense had 

retained an expert witness, who was flown in from Maryland to 

testify. The record does not indicate why the expert was not called 

to testify. Defense counsel argued Houston was not intoxicated. 

The jury returned a guilty verdict.

 

1

“Four different kinds of involuntary intoxication have been recognized: Coerced 

intoxication, pathological intoxication, intoxication by innocent mistake, and unexpected 

intoxication resulting from the ingestion of a medically prescribed drug.” City of 

Minneapolis v. Altimus, 238 N.W.2d 851, 856 (Minn. 1976). “Involuntary intoxication 

may . . . occur when intoxication results from an innocent mistake by the defendant 

about the character of the substance taken, as when another person has tricked him into 

taking the liquor or drugs.” Id. Houston opines, “Of importance here is intoxication by 

innocent mistake.”
3

State v. Houston, No. 11-1679, 2012 WL 4901400, at *1 (Iowa Ct. App. Oct. 17, 

2012). Houston appealed, contending in part his trial counsel was ineffective in

failing to file a notice of an involuntary-intoxication defense,

2

request a jury 

instruction on involuntary intoxication, and call an expert witness to testify in 

support of that defense. See id. Finding the record insufficient to address the 

ineffectiveness-of-counsel issue, this court preserved it for possible PCR 

proceedings. Id.

In December 2012, Houston filed a pro se PCR application. His amended 

application, filed in September 2014, raised the same ineffective-assistance-ofcounsel allegations he previously raised in his direct appeal. In a thorough and 

well-reasoned ruling, the PCR court denied Houston’s application. Houston now 

appeals.

II. Standard of Review

We review ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims de novo. See 

Dempsey v. State, 860 N.W.2d 860, 868 (Iowa 2015). To succeed on such a 

claim, Houston must prove both that (1) his counsel failed to perform an essential 

duty, and (2) he suffered prejudice as a result of his counsel’s failure. See id.

III. Discussion

To address Houston’s ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim, we begin 

by considering if the claim would have been meritorious had it been raised by 

trial counsel, because counsel does not provide ineffective assistance if the 

underlying claim is meritless. See State v. Halverson, 857 N.W.2d 632, 635 

 

2

Iowa Rule of Criminal Procedure 2.11(11)(c) provides: “If defendant intends to rely 

upon the defense of intoxication by drugs or alcohol . . . the defendant shall, within the 

time for filing pretrial motions, file written notice of such intention.”
4

(Iowa 2015). In other words, counsel has no duty to engage in an exercise in 

futility. “If, however, an underlying claim has merit, we must determine whether 

the failure to make the claim amounted to a breach of duty and whether the 

defendant was prejudiced by the breach.” Id.; see also Strickland v. Washington, 

466 U.S. 668, 687 (1984).

Houston recognizes our supreme court has not determined whether the 

affirmative defense of involuntary intoxication is a complete defense. State v. 

Marin, 788 N.W.2d 833, 837 (Iowa 2010) (“We have never decided if a defendant 

can use involuntary intoxication as a complete defense.”). Nevertheless, he 

asserts his trial counsel was ineffective in failing to raise the defense in his case. 

He asserts the defense has been recognized in a number of other states and 

infers the defense should be recognized in Iowa. 

Where the law is unsettled, the test to determine whether counsel is 

required to raise an issue “is whether a normally competent attorney would have 

concluded that the question . . . was not worth raising.” Millam v. State, 745 

N.W.2d 719, 722 (Iowa 2008) (internal quotation marks omitted). This test does 

not require an attorney to be clairvoyant, but rather to research the relevant legal 

issues and determine whether, given the circumstances of the particular case, 

the issue is “worth raising.” See id. In this case, even if the issue of involuntary 

intoxication as a complete defense could be considered “unsettled,” we conclude 

a normally competent attorney would have concluded the issue was not worth 

raising.
5

The intoxication defense generally applies only to crimes that have a 

specific intent element. Iowa Code section 701.5, which does not distinguish 

between voluntary and involuntary intoxication, provides:

The fact that a person is under the influence of intoxicants or 

drugs neither excuses the person’s act nor aggravates the person’s 

guilt, but may be shown where it is relevant in proving the person’s 

specific intent or recklessness at the time of the person’s alleged 

criminal act or in proving any element of the public offense with 

which the person is charged.

“[I]f intoxication negates the specific-intent element of a crime, the offender can 

only be found guilty of a lesser included offense consisting of the act without the 

intent.” State v. Guerrero Cordero, 861 N.W.2d 253, 259 (Iowa 2015). Specific 

intent requires a person to be aware of doing an act and doing it with a specific 

purpose in mind. State v. Rinehart, 283 N.W.2d 319, 320-21 (Iowa 1979); Iowa 

Crim. Jury Inst. 200.2.

Iowa Code section 321J.2(1)(a) provides, in part: “A person commits the 

offense of operating while intoxicated if the person operates a motor vehicle in 

this state [w]hile under the influence of an alcoholic beverage or other drug or a 

combination of such substances.” The crime of operating a motor vehicle while 

intoxicated is a “general intent crime,” not a specific intent crime. State v. 

Connor, 377 N.W.2d 664, 667 (Iowa Ct. App. 1985). Accordingly, a section 

701.5 intoxication defense has no application to an OWI offense.

Iowa does recognize a circumscribed intoxication defense to OWI: the 

prescription drug defense. Section 321J.2(11)(a) provides:

This section does not apply to a person operating a motor 

vehicle while under the influence of a drug if the substance was 

prescribed for the person and was taken under the prescription and 
6

in accordance with the directions of a medical practitioner . . . if 

there is no evidence of the consumption of alcohol . . . .

An operator of a vehicle cannot be convicted of OWI under the influence of a 

drug if the operator is taking the drug as prescribed. See State v. Schories, 827 

N.W.2d 659, 660 (Iowa 2013). This defense has no applicability to Houston; the 

carburetor cleaner he was using is not a prescribed drug. Additionally, the 

defense is not available if there is satisfactory proof of the use of any quantity of 

alcohol. State v. Wolfe, 369 N.W.2d 458, 460 (Iowa Ct. App. 1985). Here, 

Houston admitted drinking cherry brandy before driving. So, even if this defense 

could be employed in this case through application of some bizarre form of 

statutory construction, it would still be of no benefit to Houston.

Our legislature has spoken. It has addressed the subject of intoxicants or 

drugs in Iowa Code section 701.5. It has expressed the view that these agents 

are relevant to specific intent but do not generally excuse the person’s acts. 

Furthermore, its section 321J.2(11)(a) prescription drug defense is limited. To 

the extent that Houston is suggesting his trial counsel should have asked for 

something more—i.e., ask for the court to recognize an additional involuntaryintoxication defense that is not a part of Iowa statutory criminal law (or part of the 

common law for that matter)—we believe this substantially exceeds the 

boundaries established by the legislature. See Altimus, 238 N.W.2d at 858 

(declining to recognize a separate involuntary intoxication defense apart from the 

insanity defense enacted by the legislature). 

Under the circumstances presented, a normally competent attorney would 

have concluded the issue was not worth raising. Houston’s counsel had no duty 
7

to pursue a meritless issue. Therefore, Houston has not established his trial 

counsel was ineffective in failing to raise or assert the involuntary intoxication 

defense. Houston’s ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim fails. See Halverson, 

857 N.W.2d at 635. 

IV. Conclusion

Upon consideration of the issues raised on appeal, and for the abovestated reasons, we affirm the district court’s denial of Houston’s application for 

postconviction relief.

AFFIRMED. 

Vaitheswaran, J., concurs; Danilson, C.J., concurs specially.

 
8

DANILSON, C.J. (concurring specially)

I concur specially as I agree with the result reached by the majority but for 

a different reason. Our supreme court has concluded, “[W]e will not reverse 

where counsel has made a reasonable decision concerning trial tactics and 

strategy, even if such judgments ultimately fail.” Brewer v. State, 444 N.W.2d 77, 

83 (Iowa 1989). Here, defense counsel had a reasonable trial strategy to defend, 

claiming the State failed to prove intoxication. The fact that the defense failed or 

another defense could have been presented does not establish ineffective 

assistance of counsel. See State v. Ondayog, 722 N.W.2d 778, 786 (Iowa 

2006).