No. 4-373 / 04-0054.Court of Appeals of Iowa.
September 9, 2004.
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Dallas County, Dale B. Hagen, Judge.
Christopher J. Rose appeals from the dismissal of his postconviction relief application by the district court.AFFIRMED.
Linda Del Gallo, State Appellate Defender, and David Adams, Assistant Appellate Defender, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Sharon Hall, Assistant Attorney General, and Wayne Reisetter, Dallas County Attorney, for appellee.
Considered by Vogel, P.J., and Hecht and Vaitheswaran, JJ.
HECHT, J.
I. Background Facts and Proceedings.
Christopher Rose, while incarcerated in California, was notified of a detainer filed against him in Dallas County, Iowa, alleging charges of theft in the second degree and exercising control over stolen property on November 19, 1999. Rose sought final disposition of the charges against him, and waived extradition procedures by signing and returning an Agreement on Detainers on November 24, 1999. The request for final disposition began the running of the 180-day limit prescribed by the Agreement on Detainers Compact (Iowa Code § 821.1, art. III(a) (1999)), within which the receiving state must bring a detainee to trial. Based on the date of Rose’s signature of the agreement, Dallas County had until May 22, 2000 to try Rose.
Rose was returned to Iowa around March 18, 2000, and the State of Iowa subsequently filed an indictment alleging offenses of (1) robbery in the first degree, (2) kidnapping in the second degree, and (3) two counts of theft in the second degree. Initially, Rose entered a plea of not guilty for each charge. Rose waived his speedy trial rights on May 15, 2000 and subsequently pled guilty to (1) burglary in the second degree, (2) kidnapping in the third degree, (3) going armed with intent, and (4) assault while participating in a felony. Rose was sentenced to consecutive sentences, not to exceed forty years.
Rose did not file a motion in arrest of judgment, nor did he take a direct appeal challenging his guilty plea and sentence. In March 2003, Rose filed a motion to correct his sentence, which was dismissed on procedural grounds. He filed a pro se application for postconviction relief in July 2003, alleging (1) prosecutorial misconduct for charging crimes not included in the notice of detainer, and (2) ineffective assistance of trial counsel due to failure to object to the “improper extradition process.” Rose claimed his guilty plea was “coerced” because his trial counsel failed to advise him that his extradition was illegal.
Rose, who was indigent, was provided appointed counsel for the postconviction action. Appointed counsel filed an application to withdraw and an amended application for postconviction relief on December 2, 2003. These documents detailed his work on Rose’s behalf and disclosed he could find no issue of merit upon which to sustain Rose’s claims. On December 18, 2003, the district court concluded Rose’s claims were without merit and dismissed the postconviction relief proceeding. Rose now appeals, asserting the district court erred in (1) failing to find trial counsel ineffective for failure to challenge the validity of a speedy trial waiver made after the running of the 180 day window for bringing Rose to trial, and (2) failing to find postconviction relief counsel was ineffective for failing to allege ineffective assistance of trial counsel in connection with the same waiver.
II. Standard and Scope of Review.
When an appellant claims, on appeal, that his Sixth Amendment right to the effective assistance of counsel has been violated, our review is de novo. Ledezma v. State, 626 N.W.2d. 134, 141 (Iowa 2001).
III. Discussion.
A. Trial Counsel’s Performance.
It is now well settled that to prevail on a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, Rose must prove both (1) counsel’s performance deviated from the normal range of competency a criminal defendant is entitled to under the Sixth Amendment; and (2) counsel’s substandard performance so prejudiced the defendant as to raise the reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s errors, the result of the proceedings would have been different. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687, 104 S. Ct. 2052, 2064, 80 L. Ed. 2d. 674, 693 (1984) Dunbar v. State, 515 N.W.2d. 12, 15 (Iowa 1994). A failure to prove prejudice, even in light of proven counsel error, will cut off Rose’s ineffective assistance claim. A plea of guilty serves to waive all defenses and objections which are not intrinsic to the plea itself. Speed v. State, 616 N.W.2d. 158, 159 (Iowa 2000). Ineffective assistance of counsel claims are likewise waived by a guilty plea unless the alleged breach of counsel’s duty affected the voluntary or knowing nature of the plea itself Id. Because Rose alleges his trial counsel’s ineffectiveness affected the validity of his guilty plea, we will review his claims.
Turning to the merits of Rose’s postconviction relief application, we find no prosecutorial misconduct to which Rose’s trial counsel should have objected. The Agreement on Detainers Compact is designed to “secur[e] the speedy trial of persons already incarcerated in other jurisdictions . . .” and to “. . . encourage the expeditious and orderly disposition of such charges” as may be alleged by receiving states against detainees See Iowa Code § 821.1, art. III(a). By signing the detainer agreement, Rose waived formal extradition and invoked his right to be tried in Iowa within 180 days.
We find nothing in the case law or in Iowa Code chapter 821 that would require the high degree of symmetry suggested by Rose between the contents of the detainer agreement and the charges alleged in a related indictment or information. Moreover, we are convinced that the content of the detainer signed by Rose was sufficient to apprise him of the transactions and occurrences that formed the basis of the charges Iowa wished to prosecute against him. Thus, we find trial counsel breached no duty in failing to advise Rose of any asymmetry between the potential charges referenced in the detainer agreement and the charges actually prosecuted in Iowa. Moreover, we conclude trial counsel had no duty to raise a meritless challenge to the claimed asymmetry.
Furthermore, Rose cannot establish prejudice resulting from the claimed asymmetry. We find no reasonable probability of a different outcome if trial counsel had advised Rose not to sign the detainer agreement or raised the alleged asymmetry between the agreement and the Iowa indictment. Rose makes no contention that the State of Iowa would not have secured his presence in Iowa for prosecution on all charges alleged in the indictment without the detainer agreement. He is unable to establish that his presence in Iowa would not have been achieved by extradition.
B. Voluntariness of Rose’s Guilty Plea.
Rose also attacks his guilty plea as being coerced, in that it was obtained on advice from trial counsel that if Rose did not accept the proposed plea bargain he would be convicted at trial and be sentenced to 70 years in prison . . . [and that] . . . had counsel properly informed petitioner of the Constitutional violations of his rights concerning the extradition process, petitioner would have properly rejected the bogus plea offer and insisted on going to trial.
This attack on the voluntariness of his guilty plea must fail as it is based solely on the mistaken notion that only charges precisely described in the detainer may be prosecuted by the receiving state, a requirement that we cannot find support for in either the case law or the statute. Furthermore, we believe Rose’s challenge “fails to distinguish between a defendant’s tactical rationale for pleading guilty and a defendant’s understanding of what a plea means and his or her choice to voluntarily enter the plea.” State v. Speed, 573 N.W.2d. 594, 596 (Iowa 1998). We conclude Rose’s challenge to his guilty plea does not go to his understanding of what his plea meant, or its voluntariness. State v. LaRue, 619 N.W.2d. 395, 398 (Iowa 2000); Speed, 573 N.W.2d. at 596. We therefore affirm on this issue.
C. Postconviction relief Counsel’s Conduct.
Rose also claims that his postconviction relief counsel’s performance was deficient in that he failed to raise the ineffectiveness of trial counsel in connection with the waiver of speedy trial. Rose claims he signed the agreement on detainers on November 11, 1999, and that the 180 day limit by which Dallas County must have tried him had already expired. After a careful review of the record, we find that Rose did not sign the detainer agreement until November 24, 1999. Hence, only 173 days had passed when Rose waived his right to a speedy trial on May 15, 2000 by signed waiver. We conclude this claim of ineffective assistance is based upon a mistaken calculation of the speedy trial deadline and is therefore without merit. Therefore, we affirm on this issue.
IV. Conclusion.
Rose proved neither a breach of duty nor prejudice in connection with trial counsel’s failure to challenge the asymmetry between the detainer agreement and the Iowa indictment. We conclude a challenge to Rose’s waiver of speedy trial would have been without merit. Finding no merit in Rose’s claims of ineffective assistance of trial counsel, any related claims of ineffective assistance by his postconviction relief counsel are likewise without merit. We therefore affirm the judgment of the district court.
AFFIRMED.