Court Opinion

ID: 9408671
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-07-13 15:07:28.80565+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:45.624093
License: Public Domain

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

                                   No. 22-0935
                               Filed July 13, 2023

RANDY SCOTT MEYERS
    Applicant-Appellant,

vs.

STATE OF IOWA
     Respondent-Appellee.
________________________________________________________________

      Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Scott County, Marlita A. Greve,

Judge.

      Randy Meyers appeals the denial of his application for postconviction relief.

AFFIRMED.

      Katherine N. Flickinger of Hastings & Gartin Law Partners, LLP, Ames, for

appellant.

      Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Sheryl Soich, Assistant Attorney

General, for appellee.

      Considered by Schumacher, P.J., and Chicchelly and Buller, JJ.
                                          2

CHICCHELLY, Judge.

         Randy Meyers appeals the denial of his application for postconviction relief

(PCR). He alleges his trial and appellate counsel provided ineffective assistance

by failing to ensure the State complied with the statute of limitations for two of the

four offenses with which he was charged. We find Meyers cannot prove his

counsel breached an essential duty by opting not to object to the amended trial

information. Therefore, we affirm the district court’s denial of his application.

    I.      Background Facts and Proceedings.

         On March 7, 2007, the State charged Meyers with two counts of sexual

abuse in the third degree. An amended trial information was formally approved on

February 8, 2008, which included those two charges and two additional counts:

lascivious acts with a minor and distribution of a schedule II controlled substance

to a person under eighteen years of age. All of the acts were alleged to have

occurred between September 1, 2004, and January 21, 2005. At the time the

offenses were committed, the statute of limitations for the two additional charges

was three years. See Iowa Code § 802.3 (2005) (providing a three-year limitations

period for felonies not otherwise specified and for aggravated and serious

misdemeanors).

         Following a bench trial, the court found Meyers guilty of all four counts

charged. Meyers was sentenced to serve a total of seventy-seven years in prison

with each count running consecutively. Our supreme court upheld his convictions

for sexual abuse and lascivious acts with a minor.1 See State v. Meyers, 799

1 Meyers did not appeal from his conviction for distribution of a controlled
substance to a minor.
                                            3

N.W.2d 132, 135 (Iowa 2011). Meyers filed a pro se PCR application in June 2011.

The application was amended in December 2020. The district court denied the

PCR application in its entirety in May 2022. Meyers filed a timely appeal, which

we review de novo. See Linn v. State, 929 N.W.2d 717, 729 (Iowa 2019).

   II.      Discussion.

         “To prevail on an ineffective assistance of counsel claim, the claimant must

satisfy the two-prong test by proving that his trial counsel failed to perform an

essential duty and prejudice resulted.” State v. Majors, 940 N.W.2d 372, 391 (Iowa

2020) (citation omitted) (describing the two-prong test for ineffective assistance of

counsel claims set out in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687 (1984)).

With regard to the first prong, we presume counsel performed competently unless

proven otherwise by a preponderance of the evidence. Id. Our test is measured

objectively against the prevailing professional norms.           Id.   To establish the

prejudice required of the second prong, “the claimant must prove by a reasonable

probability that, but for counsel’s failure to perform an essential duty, the result of

the proceeding would have been different.” Id. (citation omitted). This second

prong requires a showing that “the probability of a different result is ‘sufficient to

undermine [our] confidence in the outcome’ of the trial.” Id. (citation omitted)

(alteration in original). “A defendant’s inability to prove either element is fatal.” Id.

(citation omitted).

         Meyers alleges his trial counsel breached an essential duty by failing to

object to the addition of two offenses after the expiration of the statute of limitations.

Being a three-year window, the statute of limitations for both of the added charges

expired on January 21, 2008—eighteen days before the amended trial information
                                          4

was formally approved. See Iowa Code § 802.3. Nonetheless, the State argues

Meyers’s claim must fail because Meyers was well-aware of the two additional

charges throughout the pre-trial process.       In fact, the State initially filed an

application to amend the trial information for the purpose of adding the additional

charges against Meyers on November 16, 2007—well within the limitations period.

However, the parties were involved in plea negotiations that would not require the

amendment of the trial information. After plea negotiations proved unsuccessful,

the court held a hearing on the State’s motion and ultimately formally approved the

amended trial information on February 8.

       We find the State’s focus on the November 16 filing appropriate here. It

was at this time that Meyers and his counsel made a strategic decision not to object

to the State adding charges. Meyers could have objected to the suitability of

amendment,2 but doing so was not an essential duty of counsel. After all, criminal

defendants frequently agree to permit the State to add new charges by amending

a trial information, rather than insist on the filing of a separate information, for a

variety of reasons. These reasons range from continuing present bond conditions

to preferring matters be tried in a single case rather than costly successive

prosecutions. Meyers had ten days in which to respond to the State’s amended

pleading in November. See Iowa R. Civ. P. 1.441(4) (setting forth deadline to

respond to an amended pleading); Iowa R. Crim. P. 2.34(2) (establishing that

2 The State concedes that the two additional charges were not “wholly new and
different” and thus not properly subject to amendment. See State v. Vandermark,
965 N.W.2d 888, 891–92 (Iowa 2021) (applying the well-established principle that
“an amendment charge[s] a wholly new and different offense where the amended
charge both increase[s] the potential punishment and charge[s] an offense with
different or additional elements”).
                                          5

“[s]ervice and filing of written motions, notices, orders and other similar papers

shall be in the manner provided in civil actions”). If Meyers had timely objected to

the application for amendment in November, the State in all likelihood would have

remedied the situation by filing a separate trial information charging the third and

fourth offenses—with plenty of time left before expiration of the statute of

limitations.

       As Meyers’s trial counsel explained in the postconviction matter, the

additional charges were “all part and parcel in [his] view of the State’s theory of the

case.” Consequently, the State likely could have filed a successful motion for

joinder of the second trial information with the first, resulting in exactly the same

trial unfolding with exactly the same outcome. See Iowa R. Crim. P. 2.6(1).

Because Meyers’s counsel did not fail to perform an essential duty, Meyers cannot

prove ineffective assistance of counsel. We affirm the district court’s denial of

Meyers’s PCR application.

       AFFIRMED.