Fred Moore, Applicant-Appellant v. State of Iowa ( 2016 )

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 14-1241
Filed April 6, 2016
FRED MOORE,
Applicant-Appellant,
vs.
STATE OF IOWA,
Respondent-Appellee.
________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, Jeffrey D. Farrell,
Judge.
Fred Moore appeals the district court’s decision dismissing his application
for postconviction relief from his conviction for first-degree murder. AFFIRMED.
John Audlehelm of Audlehelm Law Office, Des Moines, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Kevin Cmelik and Alexandra Link
(until withdrawal), Assistant Attorneys General, for appellee State.
Considered by Vaitheswaran, P.J., and Doyle and Mullins, JJ.
2
DOYLE, Judge.
Fred Moore appeals the district court’s decision dismissing his application
for postconviction relief (PCR) from his conviction for first-degree murder. We
determine Moore’s application is untimely under Iowa Code section 822.3 (2013).
We conclude the district court properly dismissed his PCR application and affirm.
I. Background Facts and Proceedings.
Moore was convicted of first-degree murder in 1997 and sentenced to life
in prison. His conviction was affirmed on appeal. See State v. Moore, No. 98-
1038, 1999 WL 1136569, at *4 (Iowa Ct. App. Dec. 13, 1999). Procedendo was
issued on March 15, 2000.
Moore filed his first PCR application in 2001, which was dismissed by the
district court and affirmed on appeal. Moore v. State, No. 03-1223, 2004 WL
2387040, at *1 (Iowa Ct. App. Oct. 27, 2004). His second PCR application was
filed in 2005 and dismissed as frivolous in 2008. In April 2013, Moore filed his
present and third PCR application, seeking a retroactive extension of the holding
in State v. Heemstra, 721 N.W.2d 549, 557 (Iowa 2006), to his 1997 conviction.
Heemstra held that “if the act causing willful injury is the same act that causes
the victim’s death, the former is merged into the murder and therefore cannot
serve as the predicate felony for felony-murder purposes.” 721 N.W.2d at 588.
Moore’s predicate felony was terrorism. His counsel filed an amended PCR
application in February 2014 asserting:
On August 25, 2006, the Iowa Supreme Court issued its
decision in Heemstra, which changed Iowa’s rules related to
predicate felonies and the felony merger doctrine.
On March 22, 2013, the Iowa Supreme Court reversed the
dismissal of Phuoc Nguyen’s Application for [PCR], which . . . had
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challenged the constitutionality of the Court’s decision to limit the
retroactive effect of the Heemstra Decision. While not ruling on the
merits of Nguyen’s claims, the Court determined that his application
was not barred by the three-year statute of limitation imposed by
Iowa Code § 822.3 because he could not have challenged the
constitutionality of an Iowa Supreme Court decision within three
years of his conviction when the decision was not rendered until
much after that time.
Mr. Moore’s case is very closely analogous to Nguyen’s, and
he should be allowed to reach the merits of his claim in the same
way that the court permitted Nguyen’s case to proceed on the
merits.
In the Nguyen decision referenced by Moore, the supreme court reversed the
district court’s dismissal of Nguyen’s PCR application on statute-of-limitations
grounds. Nguyen v. State (Nguyen I), 829 N.W.2d 183, 189 (Iowa 2013). It “was
determined that Nguyen’s PCR application fell within the exception contained in
Iowa Code section 822.3 because Nguyen could not have argued for the
retroactive application of Heemstra until after Heemstra had been decided.”
Nguyen v. State (Nguyen II), No. 14-0401, ___ N.W.2d ___, ___, 2016 WL
920320, at *4 (Iowa 2016).
A hearing was held on Moore’s third application in May 2014. With regard
to the statute of limitations, Moore claimed his application was timely since it was
filed within three years of the 2013 Nguyen I decision.1 The State asserted
Moore’s third PCR application was untimely under the three-year statute of
limitations in section 822.3 because the application was not filed within three
years of the 2006 Heemstra decision.
1
With regard to his constitutional issues, Moore argued any limitation on the retroactivity
of Heemstra violated his rights under the Due Process Clause and Equal Protection
Clause of the United States Constitution, and his rights under the due process, equal
protection, and separation of powers clauses of the Iowa Constitution. We note these
arguments were recently rejected by our supreme court. See Nguyen II, 2016 WL
920320, at *9-14.
4
The district court concluded the Nguyen I decision “has not been extended
to allow applicants to pursue Heemstra-styled claims any longer than three years
following the Heemstra decision.” Since Moore’s application was filed more than
six years after the Heemstra decision, the court concluded Moore’s action was
barred by the statute of limitations.
Furthermore, the court noted Moore’s second PCR application was
pending at the time the Heemstra decision was handed down. A decision on
Moore’s application was not entered until more than a year after the Heemstra
decision. Moore did not amend his application to raise the Heemstra issue prior
to the denial of his second PCR application. The district court concluded Moore’s
third application was procedurally barred. See Iowa Code § 822.8 (providing
grounds for relief may not be raised if they could have been raised in an earlier
proceeding, unless there is a “sufficient reason” for not raising the grounds
earlier). The court reasoned:
[Moore] was clearly aware of the procedure for filing an
amended petition to include new grounds of relief, as he actually
did so in his second [PCR] case. [Moore’s] current [PCR] case is
based entirely on Heemstra and consists entirely of arguments that
could have been made in the midst of his second application for
[PCR]—after the court’s decision in Heemstra on August 25, 2006,
and prior to the resolution of his second application for [PCR] on
September 25, 2007. [Moore] failed to raise these arguments
following Heemstra and prior to the court’s denial of his second
application for [PCR], and instead raises these claims in this
application—long after the time he should have raised these claims
had expired.
Finding Moore’s third application was barred both procedurally and by the statute
of limitations, the district court dismissed the application. Moore appeals.
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II. Standard of Review.
In general, our review of the denial of a PCR application is for the
correction of errors at law. Perez v. State, 816 N.W.2d 354, 356 (Iowa 2012).
When there is an allegation of a constitutional error, however, we review de novo
in light of the totality of the circumstances. Id.III. Timeliness of Application.
Section 822.3 provides that a PCR application “must be filed within three
years from the date the conviction or decision is final or, in the event of an
appeal, from the date the writ of procedendo is issued.” Here, procedendo from
Moore’s direct appeal was issued on March 15, 2000, and the present PCR
application was filed more than thirteen years later, on May 9, 2013. The
application is thus untimely unless it comes within the exception for “a ground of
fact or law that could not have been raised within the applicable time period.”
See Iowa Code § 822.3. Moore has the burden to show his application comes
within the exception to the three-year statute of limitations. See Cornell v. State,
529 N.W.2d 606, 610 (Iowa Ct. App. 1994).
In Nguyen I, Nguyen sought PCR after the three-year statute of limitations
in section 822.3 had expired but within three years after the Iowa Supreme Court
decided Heemstra. Nguyen I, 829 N.W.2d at 183. The court concluded “section
822.3 does not bar Nguyen’s constitutional claims” because Heemstra, which
“expressly overruled the prior law,” constituted a ground of law that could not
have been raised within the applicable time period. Id. at 188.
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Unlike Nguyen, however, Moore did not file this third PCR application
within three years after Heemstra was decided.2 Heemstra was filed on August
25, 2006, and Moore’s PCR application was not filed until May 9, 2013. Moore
attempts to side-step the three-year-limitation hurdle by arguing Heemstra should
not be the starting point for the statute of limitations because, “by its terms, it was
only addressing felony murder when the felony was willful injury. Heemstra said
nothing about terrorism.” The Nguyen I decision prompted Moore to file the
present PCR application, because, like Moore, Nguyen’s predicate felony was
terrorism. Nguyen II, 2016 WL 920320, at *1. Moore asserts, “It wasn’t that he
didn’t know about Heemstra. It was that he didn’t know Heemstra maybe could
help him challenge the terrorism aspect of his conviction.” 3 The fatal flaw in
Moore’s argument is that he has not met, and cannot meet, his burden to
establish that an extension of the Heemstra holding to cases involving a
predicate felony of terrorism could not been raised within three years after the
Heemstra decision. The proof in the pudding is that Nguyen filed his PCR
application within three years of Heemstra. Moore could have done the same but
did not. We therefore conclude Moore’s application is untimely under section
822.3. Furthermore, even if the application was timely, Moore’s claims would be
barred by section 822.8 because there was no sufficient cause or reason why he
2
This same conclusion, that a PCR application challenging a conviction based on the
Heemstra holding should be filed within three years after Heemstra was decided in order
to be timely, has been reached in other Iowa Court of Appeals opinions. See Sihavong
v. State, No. 14-0440, 2016 WL 351286, at *2 (Iowa Ct. App. Jan. 27, 2016); Burkett v.
State, No. 14-0998, 2015 WL 5278970, *3 (Iowa Ct. App. Sept. 10, 2015); Thompson v.
State, No. 14-0138, 2015 WL 1332352, *1 (Iowa Ct. App. Mar. 25, 2015).
3
If there had been any doubt, the issue is now crystal clear. Nguyen II states: “If
Heemstra had been controlling at the time of Nguyen’s conviction, terrorism could not
have been used as the predicate felony, and the felony-murder instruction could not
have been given as a theory to convict Nguyen.” Nguyen II, 2016 WL 920320, at *1, *3.
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could not have raised the claims in his second PCR application, which was
pending at the time Heemstra was decided.
We affirm the decision of the district court dismissing Moore’s PCR
application.
AFFIRMED.