Khamfeuang Thongvanh v. State of Iowa

• Court: Court of Appeals of Iowa
• Decided: February 19, 2025
• Docket: 24-0783
• Status: Published

Opinion

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 24-0783 Filed February 19, 2025

KHAMFEUANG THONGVANH, Applicant-Appellant,

vs.

STATE OF IOWA, Respondent-Appellee. ________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Webster County, Jennifer Miller,

Judge.

An applicant for postconviction relief appeals the dismissal of his application

as time-barred. AFFIRMED.

Jessica A. Millage of Flanagan Law Group, PLLC, Des Moines, for

appellant.

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

General, for appellee State.

Considered by Greer, P.J., and Langholz and Sandy, JJ. 2

LANGHOLZ, Judge.

About forty years ago, Khamfeuang Thongvanh was convicted of first-

degree murder after strangling a woman in her home. See State v. Thongvanh,

398 N.W.2d 182, 184 (Iowa Ct. App. 1986). Despite a three-year statute of

limitations for seeking postconviction relief that ran for him decades ago,

Thongvanh filed this (third) application for postconviction relief in July 2023,

summarily challenging his conviction and sentence on various grounds. See Iowa

Code § 822.3 (2023). The district court dismissed his application as time-barred.

Thongvanh appeals, urging us to hold that the statute of limitations violates

his “rights under the fifth, sixth, eighth, and fourteenth Amendments.” But he does

not—nor did he in the district court—flesh out any specific argument as to why the

statute of limitations violates any of those federal constitutional provisions. He

merely argues that we should apply the United States Supreme Court’s reasoning

interpreting the Second Amendment in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association

v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022), to decide whether the statute of limitations “violates

the rights of defendants.” Because we cannot construct Thongvanh’s

constitutional arguments for him, they are mostly waived by lack of adequate

briefing. See Iowa R. App. P. 6.903(2)(a)(8)(3).

Generously interpreting his briefing, the only specific challenge that he has

arguably sufficiently briefed on appeal is a violation of his federal due-process

rights. But that claim has already been rejected by our supreme court. See Davis

v. State, 443 N.W.2d 707, 710–11 (Iowa 1989) (concluding the postconviction-

relief statute of limitations “afforded defendant a reasonable opportunity to be

heard, thus ensuring his federal and state due process rights”). And this claim fails 3

because we cannot overrule our supreme court based on Thongvanh’s arguments.

See State v. Beck, 854 N.W.2d 56, 64 (Iowa Ct. App. 2014) (“We are not at liberty

to overrule controlling supreme court precedent.”).

Thongvanh alternatively argues that his application should not have been

barred by the statute of limitations because his arguments about Bruen fit within

the statutory exception for applications asserting “a ground of fact or law that could

not have been raised within the applicable time period.” Iowa Code § 822.3; see

also Thongvanh v. State, 938 N.W.2d 2, 8–10 (Iowa 2020). But Thongvanh is not

challenging his conviction based on Bruen or any other new ground of fact or law.

His arguments based on Bruen are only a challenge to the statute of limitations

itself. So this exception to the statute of limitations does not apply to Thongvanh’s

application.

Seeing no legal error, see Thongvanh, 938 N.W.2d at 8, we thus affirm the

district court’s dismissal of Thongvanh’s application for postconviction relief as

barred by the statute of limitations.

AFFIRMED.