Dorian Preston Jon Parkinson II v. State of Iowa

• Court: Court of Appeals of Iowa
• Decided: April 9, 2025
• Docket: 23-2022
• Status: Published

Opinion

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 23-2022 Filed April 9, 2025

DORIAN PRESTON JON PARKINSON II, Applicant-Appellant,

vs.

STATE OF IOWA, Respondent-Appellee. ________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Linn County, Valerie L. Clay, Judge.

An applicant appeals the denial of postconviction relief from his convictions

for domestic abuse assault causing bodily injury by strangulation, domestic abuse

assault causing bodily injury, and interference with official acts. AFFIRMED.

Gregory F. Greiner, Assistant Public Defender, for appellant.

Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Adam Kenworthy, Assistant Attorney

General, for appellee State.

Considered without oral argument by Greer, P.J., and Langholz and

Sandy, JJ. 2

LANGHOLZ, Judge.

Dorian Parkinson II attacked his wife, strangled her, and then refused to let

law enforcement officers into his home or put down his baby so that they could

arrest him. Parkinson eventually pleaded guilty to one felony—domestic abuse

assault causing bodily injury by strangulation—and two misdemeanors—domestic

abuse assault causing bodily injury and interference with official acts. As a part of

the plea agreement, the State dismissed three other charges and agreed to a

deferred judgment and two years of probation. But the district court rejected the

plea agreement. See Iowa R. Crim. P. 2.10(3)(b). And after Parkinson decided to

proceed with his plea anyway, the court sentenced him to prison for an

indeterminate five-year term on the felony, time served in jail on the misdemeanor

domestic abuse assault, and a fine on the interference-with-official-acts conviction.

We affirmed his sentence on appeal. See State v. Parkinson, No. 20-0645, 2021

WL 210704 (Iowa Ct. App. Jan. 21, 2021).

Parkinson then applied for postconviction relief. His precise grounds for

relief evolved. But by the trial, he claimed that he had received ineffective

assistance of counsel from his defense counsel that led him to plead guilty

“unknowingly and without understanding the consequences and significance, and

involuntarily.” The district court heard competing testimony from Parkinson and

his defense counsel. And in a detailed and well-reasoned fourteen-page opinion,

the court found that Parkinson had failed to prove that his counsel was ineffective.

The court carefully walked through each of Parkinson’s sometimes contradictory

allegations as to how his counsel misled him about the guilty plea and found that

the counsel’s testimony “was credible, and Parkinson’s testimony was not.” 3

On appeal, Parkinson takes issues with the district court’s credibility findings

and repeats his version of the facts that his counsel failed to ensure he “understood

the nature and terms of his plea bargain.” But on our de novo review of the

evidentiary record, mindful of the district court’s better “front-row seat to the live

testimony,” Hora v. Hora, 5 N.W.3d 635, 645 (Iowa 2024), we see no reason to

disagree with the district court’s well-supported factual findings. And for all the

reasons detailed in the district court’s opinion, we agree that Parkinson has failed

to show that his “counsel breached an essential duty” in assisting him with his guilty

plea. Smith v. State, 7 N.W.3d 723, 726 (Iowa 2024).

Because a full opinion would neither give the parties better reasoning than

they have already received from the district court nor advance development of the

law, we affirm with this memorandum opinion. See Iowa Ct. R. 21.26(1)(d), (e).

AFFIRMED.