Neil Sean Evans v. State of Iowa

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 24-0292
Filed October 2, 2024
NEIL SEAN EVANS,
Applicant-Appellant,
vs.
STATE OF IOWA,
Respondent-Appellee.
________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Plymouth County, Tod Deck, Judge.
The applicant appeals the denial of his application for postconviction relief.
AFFIRMED.
Richard Hollis, Des Moines, for appellant.
Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Louis S. Sloven, Assistant Attorney
General, for appellee State.
Considered by Greer, P.J., and Ahlers and Badding, JJ.
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GREER, Presiding Judge.
Neil Evans appeals the denial of his application for postconviction relief
(PCR). Evans challenged his conviction for operating while intoxicated (OWI), third
offense, claiming he received ineffective assistance from trial counsel, which led
him to plead guilty. He maintains that if he had been properly advised that pleading
guilty would waive his right to challenge the denial of his motion to suppress, he
would have instead elected to proceed to a stipulated trial. Following our de novo
review, we agree with the district court that Evans failed to establish a breach of
duty, so his claim fails.
I. Background Facts and Proceedings.
Late one night in 2018, the vehicle Evans was driving was stopped by a
police officer after Evans’s ex-girlfriend called 911 claiming Evans was pounding
on her door in an intoxicated state and had just left her residence in a blue truck.
Prior to the stop, the officer knew from a radio communication that Evans’s driving
privileges were revoked. As a result of the stop, Evans was arrested for OWI, third
offense; he submitted to breath testing on a certified device, which showed an
alcohol concentration of 0.179.
Evans moved to suppress evidence obtained during the stop as fruit of an
unlawful search and seizure, alleging the officer lacked probable cause or
reasonable suspicion of a crime at the time he initiated the stop. The court found
the stop and the resulting search to be justified and reasonable. It denied Evans’s
motion to suppress.
Evans reached a plea agreement with the State and pled guilty to OWI, third
offense, in violation of Iowa Code section 321J.2 (2018). Evans was also charged
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with driving while revoked in violation of section 321J.21. As part of the plea deal,
the State dropped the driving-while-revoked charge. During the plea hearing, the
court apprised Evans of the rights that he would forfeit by pleading guilty,
consistent with Iowa Rule of Criminal Procedure 2.8(2)(b) (2018). The court asked
Evans if he understood that he was giving up the rights recited by the court; he
responded in the affirmative. Neither the court nor Evans’s trial attorney informed
him that he was giving up the right to appeal the adverse suppression ruling.
After Evans filed a direct appeal, which was denied, he then applied for
PCR, claiming ineffective assistance of trial counsel. At the PCR hearing, Evans
testified that he would not have pled guilty had he been informed that a guilty plea
forfeited his right to appeal his adverse suppression ruling. Evans argued that his
counsel’s failure to inform him of the forfeiture of his rights constitutes ineffective
assistance of counsel.1 No other witnesses testified. The district court denied
Evans’s PCR application.
Evans appeals.
II. Standard of Review.
While we generally review PCR rulings for correction of errors at law, we
review allegations of ineffective assistance of trial counsel de novo. Lamasters v.
State, 821 N.W.2d 856, 862 (Iowa 2012).
1 Evans raised this same argument on direct appeal. A panel of this court
concluded the record was inadequate to address the merits of Evans’s claim and
preserved it for PCR proceedings. See State v. Evans, No. 19-0801, 2020
WL 7868117, at *2 (Iowa Ct. App. Dec. 16, 2020).
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III. Discussion.
Broadly, to establish ineffective assistance of counsel, Evans must prove
both that (1) his trial counsel performed outside the reasonable bounds of
competence and (2) but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, there would be a
reasonable probability of a different outcome at trial. See Strickland v.
Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687–88, 694 (1984). Because Evans claims ineffective
assistance after pleading guilty, to prove prejudice, he “must establish the guilty
plea would not have been entered but for the breach of duty by counsel.” See
Castro v. State, 795 N.W.2d 789, 793 (Iowa 2011); accord id. at 792–93
(recognizing that while entering a guilty plea “waives all defenses and objections
to the criminal proceedings,” a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel survives
when “the pre-plea ineffective assistance of counsel rendered the plea involuntary
or unintelligent”).
Picking up from the PCR trial, here, Evans argues that trial counsel
performed below reasonable standards by failing to apprise him that pleading guilty
waived his right to challenge the denial of his motion to suppress. We understand
Evans’s argument to be one of an unintelligent or involuntary plea, as Evans
argues that he would not have entered into the plea agreement had he been
properly informed of the forfeiture of his rights. The district court found that Evans
failed to establish deficient performance of trial counsel, show any prejudice, or
prove there was an involuntary or unintelligent plea of guilty. Further, as a
credibility finding, the district court noted Evans benefited from a favorable plea
agreement where one count was dismissed and he was given an opportunity for
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probation on the remaining count,2 thus discounting Evans’s assertion he would
not have pled guilty if he had been informed of his inability to challenge the
suppression ruling.
Iowa Rule of Criminal Procedure 2.8(2)(b) sets forth requirements that the
court must verify a defendant understands before accepting a guilty plea to ensure
the plea is voluntarily and intelligently made. Specifically, here, during the plea
proceeding the court informed Evans “[a speedy and public trial] will be waived if
you plead guilty. There will be no trial of any kind.” Of which Evans acknowledged
his understanding. And rule 2.8(2)(b) does not list a requirement to inform the
defendant that pleading guilty waives the right to challenge a suppression ruling.
So, Evans asks this court to look beyond rule 2.8(2)(b) to decide what information
trial counsel is required to impart, effectively raising the floor of required
disclosures.
The request raised by Evans was decided by a panel of this court in State
v. Pfeiferling, No. 17-0296, 2018 WL 1182621, at *1 (Iowa Ct. App. Mar. 7, 2018).
In Pfeiferling, the defendant “was not informed that by pleading guilty, he was
waiving his right to appeal the court’s adverse ruling on his motion to suppress.”
2018 WL 1182621, at *1. Similar to Evans’s assertion, Pfeiferling “argue[d] his trial
counsel was ineffective for permitting the plea to proceed.” Id. The panel ruled:
Nothing in the rule requires apprising defendants that pleading guilty
waives the right to attack an adverse suppression ruling.
Accordingly, Pfeiferling’s counsel did not breach an essential duty in
allowing the plea to proceed without informing Pfeiferling that by
pleading guilty, he was waiving his right to appeal the court’s adverse
ruling on his motion to suppress.
2 The court dismissed the companion charge of driving while revoked.
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Id. (footnote omitted).
We are not required to follow the guidance of previous unpublished cases
decided by this court. See Iowa R. App. P. 6.904(2)(a)(2) (2024) (“Unpublished
opinions or decisions of a court or agency do not constitute controlling legal
authority, but they may be cited as providing persuasive reasoning.”). But we find
no reason to depart from the analysis presented in Pfeiferling because Evans
presents a nearly identical fact pattern and rule 2.8(2)(b) did not change between
the time of the guilty plea in Pfeiferling and Evans’s guilty plea. See 2018
WL 1182621, at *1. Thus, we are persuaded by the reasoning of the Pfeiferling
court and echo it: the Iowa Rules of Criminal Procedure specify the requirements
for a knowing and voluntary plea; because the rules do not require apprising Evans
that pleading guilty waives his right to challenge the denial of his motion to
suppress, we do not find a breach of essential duty. With all these factors
considered, because Evans’s counsel acted within professional norms, Evans’s
claim fails on the first prong of the Strickland test. See Nguyen v. State, 878
N.W.2d 744, 754 (Iowa 2016) (recognizing that if an applicant fails to establish
either element, “we need not address the remaining element” (citation omitted)).
IV. Conclusion.
Because Evans cannot establish trial counsel’s performance fell below
reasonable standards, his claim of ineffective assistance fails. We affirm the
district court’s denial of his application for PCR.
AFFIRMED.