Tanner Doial Wickam v. State of Iowa ( 2023 )

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 22-0220
Filed February 22, 2023
TANNER DOIAL WICKAM,
Applicant-Appellant,
vs.
STATE OF IOWA,
Respondent-Appellee.
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Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, Jeffrey Farrell, Judge.
The applicant appeals the district court’s dismissal of his petition for
postconviction relief. AFFIRMED.
Christopher Kragnes, Sr., Des Moines, for appellant.
Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Darrel Mullins, Assistant Attorney
General, for appellee State.
Considered by Vaitheswaran, P.J., and Greer and Schumacher, JJ.
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SCHUMACHER, Judge.
Tanner Wickam appeals the denial of his postconviction-relief (PCR)
application, in which he claimed his guilty plea in his criminal proceeding was not
voluntary because of threats made by a family member of a victim. We affirm the
district court’s denial of his PCR application.
I. Background Facts & Proceedings
Wickam’s original conviction was based on an altercation that occurred after
two individuals, an engaged couple, required Wickam to vacate their home.
Wickam later confronted the pair. Wickam assaulted the male victim, tearing the
male victim’s anterior cruciate ligament. Wickam was arrested and charged with
stalking and willful injury, but he was released pending trial. A no-contact order
prohibited him from contacting either victim. Wickam promptly violated that order.
On May 30, 2019, Wickam tried to give money to the victims through one of
the victim’s father. Neighbors called law enforcement and reported a possible
fight, but by the time the police arrived, Wickam had left the area. Law enforcement
took a statement from the father. The State filed a contempt charge for violating
the no-contact order. Following hearing, Wickam spent fourteen days in jail. After
his release, Wickam broke into the victims’ home on July 13. The State filed
another contempt action. Wickam was also charged with second-degree burglary
and additional stalking charges.
Wickam vacillated on whether he would accept a plea deal. He believed
the potential sentence for the willful injury charge was excessive. He also wanted
to avoid prison time and a felony conviction because that would impede his access
to firearms. He also stated he did not want to make the victims go through a trial.
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On July 29, Wickam pled guilty to willful injury. In return for the guilty plea,
the State agreed to dismiss the burglary charge, multiple stalking charges, and the
contempt charge. After Wickam clarified he would accept the plea deal, the court
took a forty-minute recess to attend to a different matter, then again clarified if
Wickam wanted to plead guilty. After conducting the plea colloquy, during which
Wickam agreed his plea was voluntary, Wickam was convicted of willful injury, a
class “C” felony, in violation of Iowa Code section 708.4(1) (2019). Wickam waived
his right to a delayed sentencing hearing and was sentenced the same day as his
guilty plea. Wickam did not move in arrest of judgment. He filed a direct appeal
but voluntarily dismissed such appeal in December 2019.
Wickam later filed a pro se PCR application. In it, he alleged his guilty plea
was not knowing and voluntary.1 After holding an evidentiary hearing that included
testimony from Wickam, his trial counsel, and an affidavit by the father of one of
the victims, the court dismissed Wickam’s application, finding his plea was
voluntary. Wickam appeals.
II. Discussion
Wickam claims his guilty plea was not made knowingly and voluntarily, in
violation of his due process rights. He claims his family was threatened, forcing
him to take the plea to protect his brother and mother. We normally review PCR
proceedings for the correction of errors at law. Ledezma v. State, 626 N.W.2d 134,
141 (Iowa 2001). When the applicant asserts constitutional claims, our review is
1 Counsel for Wickam subsequently amended the application. The amended
application alleged the same facts and claims.
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de novo. Id. “[W]e give weight to the lower court’s findings concerning witness
credibility.” Id.While Wickam’s amended application alleged ineffective assistance of
counsel for failure to file a motion in arrest of judgment, he abandoned that
argument on appeal. See State v. Hanes, 981 N.W.2d 454, 461 (Iowa 2022)
(highlighting applicant’s access to PCR proceedings if alleging constitutionally
deficient advice of counsel in pleading guilty and forgoing a motion in arrest of
judgment). Wickam’s briefing states that he is not alleging that his trial counsel
was ineffective. Wickam asserts, “This is not a typical post-conviction relief matter.
This is not a claim against trial counsel for being ineffective, but a constitutional
claim that a plea of guilty was not voluntary based on threats by the victim’s father.”
The State urges us to affirm because Wickam failed to move in arrest of
judgment. See Iowa R. Crim. P. 2.24(3)(a) (“A defendant’s failure to challenge the
adequacy of a guilty plea proceeding by motion in arrest of judgment shall preclude
the defendant’s right to assert such challenge on appeal.”); see also Iowa Code
§ 822.8 (precluding an applicant from raising claims that were waived at the trial
level). The State raised this issue in answer to Wickam’s application although the
district court did not base the dismissal on this ground. We can affirm the district
court on any alternative basis brought before the district court even if the court did
not rule on it. See State v. Maxwell, 743 N.W.2d 185, 192 (Iowa 2008) (“We are
obligated to affirm on appeal where any proper basis appears for a trial court’s
ruling, even though it is not one upon which the court based its holding.” (citation
omitted)).
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Iowa Code section 822.2 makes clear that a postconviction relief action is
“not a substitute for . . . direct review of the sentence or conviction.” Accord
Berryhill v. State, 603 N.W.2d 243, 245 (Iowa 1999). Wickam’s claims in the PCR
action are a seemingly end-round attack of his plea. Given Wickam’s
acknowledgment that he is not alleging ineffective assistance of counsel but
challenging the voluntary nature of his plea, we determine the dismissal of
Wickam’s application was appropriate.
And even if we were to consider Wickam’s statement in his amended
application that his counsel was ineffective in failing to file a motion in arrest of
judgment, we agree with the district court’s assessment. Wickam claims that after
arriving to the home of the father of one of the victims to drop off money, the father
became violent, spitting in his face and threatening to harm Wickam’s family if he
did not go to prison. The father’s affidavit—offered into evidence by Wickam—
indicated that Wickam refused to leave the property, leading him to believe
Wickam was trying to provoke him. The affidavit was unequivocal: “I did not make
threats against [Wickam] or his family. There was no physical confrontation.”
The court ultimately concluded that Wickam’s assertions were not credible.
We give weight to that determination. See Ledezma, 626 N.W.2d at 141. It is also
well supported by the record. The father’s affidavit is largely corroborated by the
police report. Wickam did not inform his attorney, therapist, or the court of the
purported threats. His counsel had no knowledge of any of Wickam’s new claims
concerning the threats. Further, the timeline of events does not support his
contentions. Wickam did not plead guilty until nearly two months after his
confrontation with the victim’s father. In the interim, Wickam made further contact
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with the victims and, in doing so, he gained several more charges. Those charges
added a significant amount of potential prison time and diminished his hopes of
avoiding a felony conviction and retaining his right to firearms. As his counsel
testified at the PCR hearing, Wickam did not have any valid defenses and the
evidence against him was strong. The risk of lengthy prison time and the slim
chance of acquittal on any of the charges offers a far more credible reason for
Wickam’s decision to plead guilty. We affirm the denial of the PCR application.
AFFIRMED.