Chad Leroy Wilson v. State of Iowa ( 2024 )

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 23-0373
Filed October 30, 2024
CHAD LEROY WILSON,
Applicant-Appellant,
vs.
STATE OF IOWA,
Respondent-Appellee.
________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Mills County, Richard H. Davidson,
Judge.
A defendant appeals the denial of postconviction relief. AFFIRMED.
Brian S. Munnelly, Omaha, Nebraska, for appellant.
Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Louis S. Sloven, Assistant Attorney
General, for appellee State.
Considered by Schumacher, P.J., Langholz, J., and Vogel, S.J.*
*Senior judge assigned by order pursuant to Iowa Code section 602.9206
(2024).
2
VOGEL, Senior Judge.
Chad Leroy Wilson seeks postconviction relief (PCR) from his convictions
arising out of sexually abusing his stepdaughter. He argues the State’s experts
improperly vouched for the stepdaughter, the State did not prove when the abuse
occurred with enough specificity, and his life sentences are unconstitutional. He
asserts that his trial and appellate counsel’s failure to raise these issues deprived
him of effective assistance. On our review, we find counsel did not breach any
essential duties and Wilson waived his arguments as to his life sentences and one
of the experts. Thus, we affirm the PCR court.
I. Factual Background and Proceedings.
The State charged Wilson with third-degree sexual abuse, two counts of
lascivious acts with a child, and two counts of indecent contact with a child. At
trial, the State proved the following material facts to the satisfaction of the jury.
Wilson married a woman who brought two children to the marriage. Wilson
at first had good relationships with his stepchildren, but that changed when the
stepdaughter turned twelve. After she started menstruating, Wilson began making
inappropriate remarks—“If you’re a bleeder, you’re a breeder.” Wilson would
ridicule the stepdaughter when the mother was present but call her “beautiful”
when they were alone. He referred to a nickname for his penis and told her “it
wants to meet your kitty.” Wilson also asked the daughter to view “daddy and
daughter porn” on his phone. He told her “it wasn’t weird” and “a bunch of stepdads
and stepdaughters are doing it.”
Wilson soon escalated his inappropriate conduct to sexual abuse. One
afternoon while the stepdaughter was watching a movie, Wilson laid down behind
3
her on the couch, removed her shorts, took off his own pants, and inserted his
penis into her vagina. She kicked him away and fled to her room. Another time,
Wilson entered the bathroom while the stepdaughter was taking a bath and
inserted his finger into her vagina. Yet another time, Wilson entered the bathroom
while the stepdaughter was getting dressed, told her she was a “pretty girl,” and
inserted his finger into her vagina.
Wilson also groped the stepdaughter several times. He once reached into
her shirt while they were alone in the car, stopping only when the stepson
approached the car. Another time, the two were alone and he came up behind
her, reached into her shirt, and grabbed her breasts. Like before, he stopped only
when someone walked into the room. The stepdaughter was twelve years old
during all these events, except for one incident of groping when she was thirteen.
During this time, the stepdaughter asked to switch bedrooms with her
brother—his room had a lock. The brother also overheard several of Wilson’s
sexual comments to the stepdaughter. The stepdaughter was scared to tell
anyone about Wilson’s abuse, but she finally confided in her mother after hearing
Wilson threaten the mother during a fight. When the mother confronted Wilson,
he asked if the mother planned to “push this.” The mother said yes, and Wilson
responded, “why don’t you let me move to Alaska and you’ll never see or hear from
me again.”
The jury found Wilson guilty on all five counts. He was sentenced to three
concurrent life sentences in prison. Wilson appealed and our court remanded for
resentencing, finding he unknowingly and involuntarily stipulated to a prior sexual
abuse conviction. See State v. Wilson, No. 18-0536, 2019 WL 6894231, at *4
4
(Iowa Ct. App. Dec. 18, 2019). On remand, Wilson again stipulated to the prior
offense and three concurrent life sentences were again imposed.
Wilson then applied for PCR. After motion practice, the application was
narrowed to three allegations of ineffective assistance by trial and appellate
counsel: (1) the State’s experts improperly vouched for the victim’s credibility,
(2) the State’s lack of precise dates and times for the instances of abuse
functionally shifted the burden of proof, and (3) his life sentences are
unconstitutional.
The PCR court denied relief. On the vouching issue, trial counsel moved in
limine to exclude the expert’s testimony and the trial court properly denied that
motion under our caselaw that recognizes a “very thin line between testimony that
assists the jury in reaching its verdict and testimony that conveys to the jury that
the child’s out-of-court statements and testimony are credible.” See State v.
Dudley, 856 N.W.2d 668, 677 (Iowa 2014). On the burden-shifting issue, the State
was not required to prove the crimes occurred on a particular date, so neither
counsel breached an essential duty by declining to raise this objection.
As for the life sentences, Wilson argued that law enforcement did not
adequately investigate the stepdaughter, so his resulting convictions deprived him
of due process, as well as constituted cruel and unusual punishment. The PCR
court rejected his rationale, noting the evidence was put through the crucible of
trial and a jury found beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed these crimes.
Counsel thus did not breach an essential duty by declining to challenge his
sentences on these grounds. Wilson now appeals.
5
II. Analysis.
Criminal defendants are entitled to assistance of counsel. Iowa Const. art.
I, § 10; U.S. Const. amend. VI. Defendants are deprived of that right when counsel
fails to provide effective assistance. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 685–
86 (1984). To show ineffective assistance, a defendant must show “both that
counsel breached an essential duty and that constitutional prejudice resulted.”
Smith v. State, 7 N.W.3d 723, 726 (Iowa 2024).
Counsel breaches an essential duty by failing to “meet the standard of
performance required of a reasonably competent practitioner.” Id. (cleaned up).
The inquiry is demanding—we presume “the attorney acted competently” and will
not find constitutionally defective assistance based on mere “[i]mprovident trial
strategy, miscalculated tactics or mistakes in judgment.” Id. (citation omitted).
Even if counsel made one or more unprofessional errors, we will not find prejudice
unless a defendant shows “a reasonable probability” that “the result of the
proceeding would have been different” but for the error. Id. (citation omitted).
Because Wilson’s ineffective-assistance claims implicate constitutional rights, our
review is de novo. Doss v. State, 961 N.W.2d 701, 709 (Iowa 2021).
A. Vouching.
During the criminal trial, the State offered two experts on child sex abuse—
Colleen Brazil and Sarah Cleaver. While establishing Brazil’s background and
training, the State asked, “in your experience . . . [h]ave you seen cases where
there is a delay between the last time a perpetration takes place and when the
child reports abuse?” Brazil responded, “Yes. In my experience in interviewing
6
children, that’s common.” Wilson argues this testimony crossed the line into
vouching, so trial counsel should have objected. We disagree.
“Expert testimony in child sexual abuse cases can be very beneficial to
assist the jury in understanding some of the seemingly unusual behavior child
victims tend to display.” Dudley, 856 N.W.2d at 675. Children may not respond to
abuse the way an adult juror might expect, and “[a]n expert witness, such as a
psychologist or social worker, can help the jury understand these behaviors and
other behaviors common to children who have suffered sexual abuse trauma.” Id.
Thus, an expert may “explain to a jury why children victims may delay reporting
their sexual abuse,” provided the expert stops short of “commenting directly on the
child at issue and only testified generally about victims of sexual abuse.” Id.
Brazil’s testimony was expressly cabined to her “experience interviewing
children”—she did not reference the stepdaughter at all. Her testimony therefore
fell comfortably within the bounds of permissible expert opinion and any objection
from trial counsel would have been meritless. Trial counsel thus did not breach an
essential duty by not objecting to Brazil’s statement. State v. Horness, 600 N.W.2d
294, 298 (Iowa 1999).
As for Sarah Cleaver, Wilson does not identify any statement within her
testimony that he asserts crossed the line into improper vouching. Because Wilson
makes only a passing reference to Cleaver, he has waived any ineffective-
assistance argument based on her testimony. See State v. Louwrens, 792 N.W.2d
649, 650 n.1 (Iowa 2010).
7
B. Burden of Proof.
Wilson next argues that trial counsel should have objected when the State
“impermissibly switched the burden of proof.” Wilson’s argument goes like this:
the State’s trial information identified an eighteen-month time frame for when the
abuse occurred, he believes law enforcement does not adequately scrutinize
sexual abuse victims, and to keep the burden of proof on the State, the State
should have been required to use “independent” witnesses to prove “with more
specificity” when the abuse occurred. Wilson alleges he was deprived of effective
assistance when trial counsel failed to make this argument. Again, we disagree.
“[T]he State is not required to prove the precise time and place of a crime.”
State v. Yeo, 659 N.W.2d 544, 550 (Iowa 2003). This is particularly true in the
context of sexual abuse committed against children, given “the inherent difficulty
of establishing precise times and places of abuse to children due to the frequent
delay in the discovery of the abuse, as well as other factors.” Id.; see also State
v. Griffin, 386 N.W.2d 529, 532 (Iowa 1986) (reiterating the importance of not
requiring a specific time and place for sexual abuse against children and favorably
citing an out-of-state case that affirmed a two-year time frame of alleged abuse).
As the State aptly puts it, a child victim may be “too young to care what day
or month it was—and too young to realize (at the time) that those events would be
significant later.” Our cases thus instruct that “some liberality must be permitted in
the specification of time and place where young children are involved.” Griffin, 386
N.W.2d at 532. Because the State was not required to prove more specific dates
and times when Wilson abused his stepdaughter, trial counsel had no duty to lodge
a futile objection. Horness, 600 N.W.2d at 298.
8
C. Life Sentence.
Next, Wilson alleges his trial counsel should have argued his life sentences
were so grossly disproportionate they constituted cruel and unusual punishment,
as well as violated his due-process rights. We do not find this issue sufficiently
briefed for appellate review. See Iowa R. App. P. 6.903(2)(a)(8)(3). To support
his cruel-and-unusual argument, Wilson points to a case containing “three general
principles” that guide our disproportionality analysis and then summarily asserts
that “when applying these principles” we should find his “sentence creates an
inference of cross disproportionality.” Though we can locate the three principles
guiding our analysis, see State v. Oliver, 812 N.W.2d 636, 650 (Iowa 2012), we
decline to go further and serve as Wilson’s counsel by creating arguments under
those principles and combing the record for favorable facts to support those
arguments. See Hyler v. Garner, 548 N.W.2d 864, 876 (Iowa 1996). Wilson
likewise offers no legal support for his novel due-process theory. Without sufficient
advocacy on the merits of Wilson’s sentencing argument, we find the issue waived.
D. Direct Appeal
Finally, Wilson incorporates his prior arguments and asserts that because
trial counsel was ineffective under those grounds, his prior appellate counsel
necessarily erred by not raising the issues on direct appeal. Yet Wilson has failed
to prove trial counsel provided ineffective assistance with respect to vouching, the
burden of proof, or his life sentences. It therefore follows that appellate counsel
also did not breach any essential duties by forgoing these issues on direct appeal.
AFFIRMED.