Aaron Lee Stinde v. State of Iowa

Opinion

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 24-1561 Filed October 15, 2025

AARON LEE STINDE, Applicant-Appellant,

vs.

STATE OF IOWA, Respondent-Appellee. ________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Scott County, Henry W. Latham II,

Judge.

An applicant for postconviction relief appeals the dismissal of his application

as time-barred. AFFIRMED.

Jason Patrick Hallberg of Hallberg Law Firm P.C., Buffalo Center, for

appellant.

Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Louis S. Sloven, Assistant Attorney

General, for appellee State.

Considered without oral argument by Schumacher, P.J., and Badding and

Langholz, JJ. Telleen, S.J., takes no part. 2

LANGHOLZ, Judge.

One January 2014 evening, Aaron Stinde trapped his girlfriend in a motel

room for hours—repeatedly raping her, strangling her to the point of

unconsciousness, and beating her. After a bench trial, the district court found him

guilty of first-degree kidnapping, three counts of second-degree sexual abuse,

domestic abuse assault with bodily injury, and operating a motor vehicle without

consent. And we affirmed on direct appeal. See State v. Stinde, No. 15-1554,

2016 WL 4802412, at *1 (Iowa Ct. App. Sept. 14, 2016). More than seven years

later, Stinde filed this postconviction-relief (“PCR”) application alleging that his

counsel in his first PCR proceeding was ineffective. The district court dismissed

the application as time-barred under Iowa Code section 822.3 (2024) because it

was filed more than three years after Stinde’s conviction became final.

On appeal, Stinde argues that applying section 822.3—which was amended

after the commission of his offenses—to bar his PCR application violates the Ex

Post Facto Clause of the Iowa Constitution and the right to counsel in article I,

section 10, of the Iowa Constitution. Trouble is, Stinde did not raise either of these

issues in the district court. There, he made only general arguments that applying

section 822.3 would violate his equal-protection and due-process rights under the

Iowa Constitution. Understandably then, the district court also did not decide the

issues that he now raises on appeal. Because these issues were neither

presented to nor decided by the district court, Stinde failed to preserve error on

them. See Sandoval v. State, 975 N.W.2d 434, 438 (Iowa 2022). We thus cannot

consider them and affirm the district court’s dismissal of Stinde’s PCR application.

AFFIRMED.