Opinion ID: 1837980
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The trial court was wrong in failing to make specific findings of fact. Section 663A.7 provides in part:

Text: The court shall make specific findings of fact, and state expressly its conclusions of law, relating to each issue presented.   . The provision should be complied with even where, as here, the trial court believes the petitioner to be on unsound legal ground. The findings should nevertheless be made for a proper disposition on review. The case must be reversed and remanded for retrial for a determination of petitioner's claim. At such trial the State shall provide a record of the earlier proceeding. IV. In a separate division of his application for postconviction relief petitioner challenged disciplinary proceedings at the Iowa State Penitentiary. He alleged good and honor time had been taken from him by the prison administration. This was assailed as violative of the due process clause of Amendment 5, United States Constitution. The trial court rightly disclaimed jurisdiction to consider this claim. The postconviction remedy was given to supplant    common law, statutory, or other remedies formerly available for challenging the validity of the conviction or sentence. (Emphasis added) Section 663A.2, The Code. Its purpose was to return to the trial courts across the state, for their own first consideration and possible correction, challenges addressed to their prior actions. The challenges contemplated involved local actions and procedures, upon which proof was immediately available. It did away with the former practice which required trial courts at the place of our penal institutions to review proceedings of other trial courts. Forfeiture of the reduction of honor time is governed by section 246.41, The Code. Challenges to any such forfeitures have been traditionally undertaken by writ of habeas corpus. State v. Hunter, 124 Iowa 569, 100 N.W. 510; State v. Barr, 133 Iowa 132, 110 N.W. 280; Curtis v. Bennett, 256 Iowa 1164, 131 N.W.2d 1. See also 72 C.J.S. Prisons § 21h, pages 890-892. Petitioner was perhaps deterred from proceeding in habeas corpus in the county of his imprisonment by the terms of section 663A.1, The Code, which seems to abrogate habeas corpus for persons convicted of, or sentenced for, a public offense. We interpret this section as a limitation on habeas corpus only to whatever extent the remedy is supplanted by the right to proceed in a postconviction proceeding. Such an interpretation is demanded by Article I, section 13, of the Iowa Constitution. It provides: The writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, or refused when application is made as required by law, unless in case of rebellion, or invasion the public safety may require it. The trial court was right in disclaiming jurisdiction to consider the challenge to disciplinary proceedings at the penitentiary but must be reversed for the reasons announced in divisions I and II. Affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded.