Opinion
No. 13–1006.
2014-10-1
Richard Allen HEIEN, Applicant–Appellant, v. STATE of Iowa, Respondent–Appellee.
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Plymouth County, James D. Scott, Judge.Heien appeals the dismissal of his third application for postconviction relief. AFFIRMED.Michael J. Jacobsma of Jacobsma & Clabaugh, P.L.C., Sioux Center, for appellant.Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Jean C. Pettinger, Assistant Attorney General, and Darin J. Raymond, County Attorney, for appellee.
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Plymouth County, James D. Scott, Judge.
Heien appeals the dismissal of his third application for postconviction relief. AFFIRMED.
Michael J. Jacobsma of Jacobsma & Clabaugh, P.L.C., Sioux Center, for appellant. Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Jean C. Pettinger, Assistant Attorney General, and Darin J. Raymond, County Attorney, for appellee.
Considered by DANILSON, C.J., VOGEL, J., and SACKETT, S.J. SACKETT, S.J.
Senior judge assigned by order pursuant to Iowa Code section 602 .9206 (2013).
Appellant Richard Allen Heien, who was convicted of vehicular homicide and involuntary manslaughter on April 4, 2006, appeals from the district court's dismissal on summary judgment of his third application for postconviction relief alleging ineffective assistance of counsel. He contends the district court erred in finding he failed to provide a sufficient reason for not asserting those grounds in an earlier application, and ruling this application was barred pursuant to Iowa Code section 822.8 (2013) and his claim was time barred under Iowa Code section 822.3. We affirm.
STANDARD OF REVIEW. Appellate review of a postconviction proceedings is generally for errors of law. Bugley v. State, 596 N.W.2d 893, 895 (Iowa 1999), superseded on other grounds by statute, 2004 Iowa Acts ch. 1017, § 2, as recognized in State v. Johnson, 784 N.W.2d 192 (Iowa 2010). If the applicant alleges a denial of his constitutional rights, as Heien does here, appellate review is de novo. State v. Parker, 747 N.W.2d 196, 203 (Iowa 2008).
Heien contends that in Adams, the Iowa Supreme Court for the first time determined it was the State's burden under Iowa Code section 707.6A(1) to provide more than mere proof the defendant's driving caused the death of another person. The court there held a defendant may be found guilty of homicide by vehicle only if the jury finds beyond a reasonable doubt that his criminal act of driving under the influence of alcohol caused the victim's death. Adams, 810 N.W.2d at 371.
The State argues Adams does not change or overrule prior law but merely clarified the law, and we are inclined to agree. Adams was not new law; rather, it was a clarification of the law in that it noted the vehicular homicide statute “included no clear expression of the legislature's intent as to whether the State must prove a direct causal connection between defendant's intoxicated driving and the victim's death to support a conviction.” Id. at 370. Furthermore, a similar issue was addressed in State v. Wieskamp, 490 N.W.2d 566, 567 (Iowa Ct.App .1992), where this court required a causal connection between a defendant's intoxicated driving and the victim's death to support a conviction, stating: “We find as a matter of law that a sober person driving with reasonable care would have struck and killed the victim.” We reversed the defendant's conviction of vehicular homicide. Wieskamp, 490 N.W.2d at 567.
Heien has filed nothing to show that his claims are based on new evidence or are new legal claims. Heien had opportunities to claim ineffectiveness of trial counsel on the claims raised here before the time bar became enforceable against him. He could have raised it on appeal and in his earlier postconviction actions. On appeal, Heien cannot assert ignorance of the claim because he should have at least been alerted to trial counsel's failure to raise the issue, and appellate and postconviction counsels' failure to raise ineffectiveness claims. See Fuhrmann v. State, 433 N.W.2d 720, 723 (Iowa 1988) (holding that if matters raised in an untimely postconviction application were not raised due to ineffective assistance of appellate counsel or failure to preserve error at trial, ineffective assistance could also have been raised within the time limitation).
AFFIRMED.