Esteban Velazquez-Ramirez v. State of Iowa

• Court: Court of Appeals of Iowa
• Decided: August 20, 2025
• Docket: 24-0294
• Status: Published

Opinion

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 24-0294 Filed August 20, 2025

ESTEBAN VELAZQUEZ-RAMIREZ, Applicant-Appellant,

vs.

STATE OF IOWA, Respondent-Appellee. ________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Crawford County, James N. Daane,

Judge.

A postconviction-relief applicant appeals the district court’s order dismissing

his application. AFFIRMED.

Gregory F. Greiner, West Des Moines, for appellant.

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

General, for appellee.

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

Buller, JJ. 2

AHLERS, Presiding Judge.

Esteban Velazquez-Ramirez was convicted of first-degree murder in 2004.

He filed this action—his third application for postconviction relief—in 2023. He

made no substantive claim for postconviction relief. He claimed only that he is

entitled to file a postconviction-relief action outside the three-year statute of

limitation provided for in Iowa Code section 822.3 (2023) because New York State

Rifle and Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022) provides a new ground of law

exempting his application from time bar found in section 822.3. The district court

found Bruen did not apply and dismissed Velazquez-Ramirez’s application. He

appeals.

We have repeatedly addressed and rejected the claim made here. See

Losee v. State, No. 24-0794, 2025 WL 2057914, at *2 (Iowa Ct. App. July 23,

2025); Dixon v. State, No. 23-2106, 2025 WL 1704196, at *1 (Iowa Ct. App. June

18, 2025); Woodberry v. State, No. 23-1956, 2025 WL 1704362, at *1 (Iowa Ct.

App. June 18, 2025); Roach v. State, No. 24-0074, 2025 WL 1453349, at *1 (Iowa

Ct. App. May 21, 2025); Ledesma v. State, No. 24-0479, 2025 WL 1322681, at *1

(Iowa Ct. App. May 7, 2025); Neal v. State, No. 24-0669, 2025 WL 1321447, at *1

(Iowa Ct. App. May 7, 2025); Thongvanh v. State, No. 24-0783, 2025 WL 547744,

at *1 (Iowa Ct. App. Feb. 19, 2025); Lord v. State, No. 24-0065, 2025 WL 272579,

at *1 (Iowa Ct. App. Jan. 23, 2025); Dao v. State, No. 23-1629, 2024 WL 3887440,

at *1 (Iowa Ct. App. Aug. 21, 2024). A full opinion would not augment or clarify

existing case law, so we affirm without further opinion. See Iowa Ct. R. 21.26(1)(a),

(d), (e).

AFFIRMED.