Court Opinion

ID: 9959037
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-04-10 16:06:12.486661+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:18:23.971811
License: Public Domain

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

                                     No. 22-1997
                                 Filed April 10, 2024

HEATHER LORRAINE SWANSON,
    Applicant-Appellant,

vs.

STATE OF IOWA,
     Respondent-Appellee.
________________________________________________________________

         Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Boone County, Bethany Currie,

Judge.

         Heather Swanson appeals the district court’s denial of her application for

postconviction relief. AFFIRMED.

         Katherine N. Flickinger of Hastings & Gartin Law Group, LLP, Ames (until

withdrawal), and Denise McKelvie Gonyea of McKelvie Law Office, Grinnell, for

appellant.

         Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Louis S. Sloven, Assistant Attorney

General, for appellee State.

         Considered by Bower, C.J., and Greer and Chicchelly, JJ.
                                            2

BOWER, Chief Judge.

          Heather Swanson appeals the district court’s denial of her application for

postconviction relief (PCR), which asserted she received ineffective assistance of

counsel in one of her criminal proceedings. Swanson claims her trial counsel was

ineffective by failing to move for dismissal based on a speedy-indictment violation

and by failing to pursue a claim of law enforcement bias. Upon our review, we

affirm.

I.        Background Facts and Proceedings

          The State filed a trial information charging Swanson with unauthorized

possession of an offensive weapon and felon in possession of an offensive

weapon. Swanson pleaded guilty to the charge of unauthorized possession of an

offensive weapon. The court sentenced Swanson to a five-year indeterminate

term of incarceration but suspended the sentence and placed her on probation.

The court later entered an order revoking Swanson’s probation, imposed her

prison term, and running the time concurrently to her sentence in a different case. 1

Swanson thereafter filed a PCR application, claiming ineffective assistance of

counsel.      Following a hearing, the district court denying Swanson’s claims.

Swanson appeals.

II.       Standard of Review

          “Our review of [PCR] proceedings is typically for correction of errors at law.

But when . . . reviewing an ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim, we do so de

1
 See State v. Swanson, No. 21-0694, 2022 WL 951106, at *1 (Iowa Ct. App.
Mar. 30, 2022) (affirming Swanson’s conviction for third-degree theft).
                                         3

novo because such claims are constitutional in nature.” Ruiz v. State, 912 N.W.2d

435, 439 (Iowa 2018).

III.   Discussion

       Swanson claims her trial counsel was ineffective by failing to move for

dismissal based on a speedy-indictment violation. To prevail on her ineffective-

assistance-of-counsel claim, Swanson must demonstrate (1) her trial counsel

failed to perform an essential duty and (2) this failure resulted in prejudice. See

Lado v. State, 804 N.W.2d 248, 251 (Iowa 2011). “Both elements must be proven

by a preponderance of the evidence.” Ledezema v. State, 626 N.W.2d 134, 142

(Iowa 2001). “Counsel breaches an essential duty when counsel makes such

serious errors that counsel is not functioning as the advocate the Sixth Amendment

guarantees.” Sothman v. State, 967 N.W.2d 512, 522 (Iowa 2021). “We presume

counsel acted competently[,] but that presumption is overcome” if we find Swanson

has proved her counsel’s performance “’fell below the normal range of

competency.’” Id. at 522 (citation omitted).

       “Because the test for ineffective assistance of counsel is a two-pronged test,

[Swanson] must show both prongs have been met.” See Nguyen v. State, 878

N.W.2d 744, 754 (Iowa 2016). If she cannot prove either prong, we need not

address the other. See id. We resolve Swanson’s ineffective-assistance claim on

the first prong, whether counsel breached an essential duty.

       Swanson was arrested on June 30, 2021. She bonded out, but she failed

to appear for her initial appearance. The court issued a bench warrant. Swanson

was arrested again on July 14, and her initial appearance took place on July 15.
                                          4

The State filed a trial information on August 23, thirty-nine days after her initial

appearance and forty days after her second arrest.

         Iowa Rule of Criminal Procedure 2.33(2)(a) 2 states:

                When an adult is arrested for the commission of a public
         offense, . . . and an indictment is not found against the defendant
         within [forty-five] days, the court must order the prosecution to be
         dismissed, unless good cause to the contrary is shown or the
         defendant waives the defendant’s right thereto.

According to Swanson, the forty-five-day clock started on June 30, 2021, when “a

formal arrest [was] made.” Accordingly, she claims her trial counsel was ineffective

by failing to file a motion to dismiss on speedy-indictment grounds. At the PCR

hearing, Swanson’s counsel David Barajas testified he and Swanson discussed

raising a speedy-indictment claim, but ultimately they determined it was not

supported by the law in effect at the time relevant to her arrest and indictment.

         In 2017, our supreme court attempted to clarify “when a statutory arrest

occurs for speedy-indictment purposes” by setting forth “a bright-line rule.” Accord

State v. Dobbe, No. 19-0930, 2020 WL 6157785, at *2 (Iowa Ct. App. Oct. 21,

2020). Specifically, in State v. Williams, 895 N.W.2d 856, 867 (Iowa 2017), the

court held, “The rule is triggered from the time a person is taken into custody, but

only when the arrest is completed by taking the person before a magistrate for an

initial appearance.”    This court has since relied on Williams to conclude the

“speedy-indictment clock began to run” on the date of “initial appearance[, which]

completed [the] arrest.” See Dobbe, 2020 WL 6157785, at *2; accord id. (“The

determination of when an arrest is completed for purposes of the speedy-

2
    This rule was amended, effective July 1, 2023.
                                           5

indictment rule is of particular importance when, as here, some time passes

between an arrest and when the defendant is brought before the magistrate for an

initial appearance.”).

       According to Barajas, the speedy indictment was “an issue that [Swanson]

and I had discussed” but opted not to pursue because it was not supported by “the

case law.” Barajas further explained:

                The problem with [Swanson]’s instance, she was arrested, but
       she never saw a magistrate for the initial appearance and that—you
       know, that is necessary—or I believe it’s necessary under the current
       case law to trigger that actually to be the arrest date.
                So she bonded out before she saw a magistrate and then
       went into warrant status briefly. So if you take those days out, the
       trial information was timely filed. It was close, I mean, maybe forty
       days, but that is an issue that we had talked about and we didn’t file
       it because we didn’t feel like the case law supported it.
                ....
                . . . [S]he did not see the magistrate to complete the arrest.
       We did the research on it. I think it’s the Williams case. I don’t have
       a case cite to it, but she bonded out before she saw a judge and I
       believe that did not trigger the arrest date for the forty-five days to
       begin.

       To support her claim on appeal, Swanson points to the supreme court’s

ruling in State v. Watson, 970 N.W.2d 302, 304 (Iowa 2022), filed after her guilty

plea, in which the court “took th[e] opportunity to clear up the confusion” its Williams

holding had caused.3 Specifically, the court stated if the arrest is followed by an

initial appearance, the forty-five days should be counted “from the dates the

citations issued rather than [an] initial appearance.” Watson, 970 N.W.2d at 309

(emphasis added).

3
  See Watson, 970 N.W.2d at 308 n.4 (“Judges on the court of appeals have
disagreed on whether under Williams the forty-five-day time clock runs from the
date of the initial appearance or the date of arrest.”).
                                         6

       Under these facts and circumstances, we conclude counsel did not engage

in deficient performance by declining to file a motion to dismiss based on an

alleged speedy-indictment violation.    At the time relevant to Swanson’s case,

Williams “provide[d] the most recent definition of how courts are to apply the

speedy indictment rule.”    State v. Smith, 957 N.W.2d 669, 675 (Iowa 2021).

Counsel’s understanding and application of Williams was reasonable. Watson was

decided after Swanson entered her guilty plea. In Watson, the court recognized

the “confusion” Williams had caused. 970 N.W.2d at 308 n.4. Here, counsel did

not have an obligation to predict the court’s clarification in Watson. See State v.

Schoelerman, 315 N.W.2d 67, 72 (Iowa 1982) (“[A]n attorney need not be a ‘crystal

gazer’ who can predict future changes in established rules of law in order to provide

effective assistance to a criminal defendant.”). Furthermore, because Swanson

failed to appear for her initial appearance, resulting in another arrest and a second

scheduled initial appearance, her speedy-indictment clock would have started at

the time of her second arrest. The trial information was filed within forty-five days

of her second arrest. We affirm on this issue.

       Swanson also contends trial counsel was ineffective by failing to pursue a

claim of law enforcement bias.       Specifically, she claims during her criminal

proceeding, counsel failed to “cross-examine the officer on bias against [Swanson]

or her family” or question Swanson “regarding law enforcement bias.” This claim

has no connection to the procedural history of this case, 4 and the PCR court did

4
  But see Swanson v. State, No. 22-1998, 2023 WL 7015339, at *2–3 (Iowa Ct.
App. Oct. 25, 2023) (addressing Swanson’s claim “that her trial counsel was
ineffective in failing to meaningfully confront a State’s witness,” in which she
claimed “counsel committed a breach by not cross-examining the arresting officer
                                         7

not address it. Accordingly, we decline to address it. See Lamasters v. State, 821

N.W.2d 856, 862 (Iowa 2012) (“It is a fundamental doctrine of appellate review that

issues must ordinarily be both raised [to] and decided by the district court before

we will decide them on appeal.” (citation omitted)).

      We affirm the denial of Swanson’s PCR application.

      AFFIRMED.

about his bias against Swanson [and] by not affording Swanson a chance to testify
about law enforcement bias”).