Jeremy Dale Lawson v. State of Iowa

• Court: Court of Appeals of Iowa
• Decided: August 20, 2025
• Docket: 24-0193
• Status: Published

Opinion

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 24-0193 Filed August 20, 2025

JEREMY DALE LAWSON, Applicant-Appellant,

vs.

STATE OF IOWA, Respondent-Appellee. ________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Wapello County, Crystal S. Cronk,

Judge.

Jeremy Dale Lawson appeals the denial of his application for postconviction

relief. AFFIRMED.

Thomas M. McIntee, Williamsburg, for appellant.

Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Genevieve Reinkoester, Assistant

Attorney General, for appellee State.

Considered without oral arguments by Greer, P.J., and Badding and

Chicchelly, JJ. 2

CHICCHELLY, Judge.

Jeremy Dale Lawson appeals the denial of his application for postconviction

relief (PCR), alleging his PCR counsel was ineffective. Upon our review, we affirm

the dismissal of his PCR proceedings.

I. Background Facts and Proceedings.

This PCR petition arises from an incident occurring back in 1999 after

Lawson “obtain[ed] approximately $8000 from [the victim] by deception” and

pleaded guilty to second-degree theft. Over two decades later, Lawson sent a

handwritten letter to the court, expressing his desire to apply for PCR and

requesting counsel. The court directed Lawson to the proper forms and methods

for filing a PCR application. Lawson then applied for PCR using the correct forms,

alleging a lack of factual basis, actual innocence, and ineffective assistance of

counsel. The court responded, stating that Lawson’s PCR application did not

comply with proper procedure because (1) the application omitted pertinent

information, such as the conviction date and case number, and (2) the application

was untimely based on the applicable statute of limitations. See Iowa R. Crim.

P. 2.37—Form 7 (listing required information); Iowa Code § 822.3 (2023) (outlining

a three-year limitations period from the date of conviction for certain postconviction

claims). While Lawson corrected the missing information, he did not provide any

substantive argument for the application’s timeliness and instead requested

counsel, which the court provided.

Two months after the court appointed Lawson counsel, Lawson requested

substitute counsel, alleging his PCR counsel “has not had any communication with

[him] in this case.” The court scheduled a hearing on the motion, but the record is 3

unclear on whether the hearing took place. In any case, in November 2023, the

court entered an order stating that Lawson’s factual-basis and

ineffective-assistance claims were outside the statute of limitations and that the

court intended to dismiss Lawson’s entire application. But it permitted Lawson “the

opportunity to reply to the proposed dismissal” within a one-month deadline.

Lawson’s counsel filed the following resistance after the court’s deadline,

which we include in its entirety:

1. Defendant filed post-conviction relief proceedings regarding Wapello County Case No. FECR005927. Defendant plead guilty on or about August 30, 2000. 2. Defendant asserts his actual innocence. Defendant’s claim to actual innocence is not limited by the statute of limitations found in Iowa Code § 822.3. WHEREFORE, the undersigned respectfully requests that the Court deny any dismissal of the above cause of action.

Two days later, the court dismissed Lawson’s PCR as untimely. Lawson appeals.

II. Review.

We generally review postconviction proceedings for correction of errors at

law and constitutional challenges in postconviction proceedings de novo. Lado v.

State, 804 N.W.2d 248, 250 (Iowa 2011). While postconviction applicants have a

statutory, not constitutional, right to effective assistance of counsel, “we still apply

a de novo review.” Id.

III. Discussion.

To analyze ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims, we generally use a

two-prong test where an applicant must prove: “(1) his trial counsel failed to

perform an essential duty, and (2) this failure resulted in prejudice.” Id. at 251

(citation omitted). But when counsel commits a structural error which “affect[s] the 4

framework within which the trial proceeds,” the criminal adversary process is

“presumptively unreliable,” and we do not require the applicant to establish

prejudice. Id. at 252 (citations omitted). “[S]tructural error occurs when:

(1) counsel is completely denied, actually or constructively, at a crucial stage of

the proceeding; (2) where counsel does not place the prosecution’s case against

meaningful adversarial testing; or (3) where surrounding circumstances justify a

presumption of ineffectiveness . . . .” Id. Lawson’s challenge focuses on the first

circumstance.

Upon our review of the record, we do not find that Lawson’s counsel was

“so objectively lacking as to cause a structural error.” See Harkless v. State,

No. 16-2082, 2017 WL 6513966, at *2 (Iowa Ct. App. Dec. 20, 2017). Lawson

contends that his counsel failed to adequately resist dismissal of the proceedings,

but his counsel had no basis to challenge dismissal of the time-barred claims. See

Ruiz v. State, 18 N.W.3d 453, 458–59 (Iowa 2025) (affirming PCR dismissal

because the claims were time-barred and therefore “meritless”). As for the

actual-innocence argument, Lawson neither establishes structural error nor

prejudice. Lawson identifies “no meritorious claim that PCR counsel should have

raised or raised more effectively”; instead, he vaguely reasserts that he is actually

innocent without providing any additional facts to support this claim, how he

discovered those facts, or what took place during the proceedings to deprive him

of counsel. See Harkless, 2017 WL 6513966, at *2; accord Ruiz, 18 N.W.3d

at 459 (requiring a PCR applicant to develop “new facts that were previously

unavailable” to prevent dismissal of his actual-innocence claim). While Lawson

admonishes his counsel for failing to resist dismissal of the proceedings before the 5

court-imposed deadline, Lawson provides no evidence that this was due to

counsel’s lack of diligence. And we do not speculate about counsel’s performance

or strategy, but we require PCR applicants to develop such arguments to establish

structural error. Ruiz, 18 N.W.3d at 460. Instead, we find it more likely that

Lawson’s “counsel reviewed [the] case and found no basis upon which to sustain

his claim.” See Harkless, 2017 WL 6513966, at *2. We therefore do not find

counsel’s alleged failure to resist constitutes structural error but reflects the lack of

merits in Lawson’s application. Compare Lado, 841 N.W.2d at 252 (reversing

dismissal for failure to prosecute after “counsel sat silent and did not respond”),

with Ruiz, 18 N.W.3d at 458 (affirming dismissal for time-barred claims even after

counsel failed to file any resistance).1 Accordingly, we affirm dismissal of the

proceedings.

IV. Disposition.

We affirm the PCR court’s dismissal of Lawson’s application.

AFFIRMED.

1 The State also asks us to overrule or limit Lado. But as an intermediary court, “[w]e are not at liberty to overrule controlling supreme court precedent.” State v. Beck, 854 N.W.2d 56, 64 (Iowa Ct. App. 2014); accord Mapp v. State, No. 14-1537, 2016 WL 146246, at *2 (Iowa Ct. App. Jan. 13, 2016) (“As a general rule, the task of materially altering substantive or procedural rights [under Lado] is best left to the Supreme Court of Iowa.”).