Court Opinion

ID: 9692490
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 15:55:33.717051+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:34.769329
License: Public Domain

McCORMICK, Justice
(dissenting).
The first question here is whether a trial court may on its own motion after the record is closed in a postconviction proceeding dismiss the petition because of the petitioner’s failure to plead or prove sufficient reason for failing to raise his postconviction contention on direct appeal when the issue of sufficient reason was not pled or litigated in the postconviction court. The second question is whether in any event sufficient reason appears on the face of the record in this case for the petitioner’s failure to urge the contention on direct appeal.
I. In Hack v. Auger, 228 N.W.2d 42, 44 (Iowa 1975), we suggested the State may be foreclosed from resisting a postconviction petition on the ground of abuse of process when it has not raised the issue in its answer. We said:
The purpose of this rule is to permit the petitioner to show cause why an issue which should have been raised was not. Perhaps he can justify such failure if given the opportunity to do so.
Until today this court has not had occasion to decide whether this rule should be adopted. The question was not decided in Rinehart v. State, 234 N.W.2d 649 (Iowa 1975), as alleged in the court’s opinion. Instead the court in Rinehart simply held the post-conviction court in that case had conducted a factual hearing on the issue of “sufficient reason”. The court also held the petitioner had the burden of proof on that issue, which he did not sustain. See 234 N.W.2d at 657-658. The court did not decide who had the obligation to plead the issue. Assignment of burden of proof is not an issue here.
*35In this case the issue of sufficient reason was neither pled nor litigated. The fact of a prior appeal was not even mentioned in the postconviction hearing. It was mentioned only in the State’s trial brief. We must therefore decide for the first time who has the burden to raise the preclusion issue in the postconviction proceeding. Upon the reasoning and authorities in Hack v. Auger, supra, I would hold the State has the obligation to plead the issue. When it has not done so, and when the issue has not actually been litigated by the parties as .in Rinehart, I would hold the court may not dismiss the postconviction petition on the ground of the petitioner’s failure to prove sufficient reason for not asserting his post-conviction contention on direct appeal. Because the trial court dismissed the petition on this ground here, I would reverse and remand for determination of the postcon-viction action on its merits on the present record.
I do not intimate how the merits of the petition should be decided because I believe the determination should be made in the first instance by the postconviction court. The present appeal does not involve any issue regarding the merits of petitioner’s postconviction claim.
II. Even if the court is right in holding a postconviction court may dismiss the petition on the abuse of process ground after the record has been closed in cases like this where the issue has not been pled or litigated, I believe the present record shows sufficient reason for the petitioner’s failure to urge his postconviction contention on direct appeal. The record of the postconviction hearing shows he relies on evidence which was not in the record of his conviction in alleging his plea of guilty was defective. He had no record upon which to raise the issue on direct appeal. This is precisely why the postconviction hearing was necessary and why hearings were required in analogous situations by the Supreme Court in Fontaine v. United States, 411 U.S. 213, 93 S.Ct. 1461, 36 L.Ed.2d 169 (1973), and by this court in State v. Boge, 252 N.W.2d 411 (Iowa 1977).
In Boge we said, “[W]e decline to hold that the burden of proving sufficient cause should result in a dismissal merely because no allegation of sufficient cause appears in the petition.” 252 N.W.2d at 414-415. We also said, “Where, as here, the record demonstrates in itself sufficient reason for petitioner’s failure to adequately raise an issue previously, petitioner need not plead or offer further proof to assure an adjudication on the issues.” 252 N.W.2d at 415. As in Boge the ground urged in the postconviction petition here depends on evidence de-hors the record of conviction. Here, as there, we should recognize the record shows on its face sufficient reason for his failure to raise this ground on direct appeal.
The case should be reversed and remanded for determination of the merits of his contention.
RAWLINGS and LeGRAND, JJ„ join in this dissent.