Michael Anthony Roach v. State of Iowa

• Court: Court of Appeals of Iowa
• Decided: May 21, 2025
• Docket: 24-0074
• Status: Published

Opinion

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 24-0074 Filed May 21, 2025

MICHAEL ANTHONY ROACH, Applicant-Appellant,

vs.

STATE OF IOWA, Respondent-Appellee. ________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, Joseph D. Seidlin,

Judge.

The applicant appeals the summary dismissal of his sixth application for

postconviction relief. AFFIRMED.

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

Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Linda J. Hines, Assistant Attorney

General, for appellee State.

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

Sandy, JJ. 2

GREER, Presiding Judge.

Michael Roach was convicted of second-degree murder and first-degree

robbery in 2004. He was later sentenced to a term of incarceration not to exceed

fifty years. Roach filed an unsuccessful direct appeal, see generally State v.

Roach, No. 04-1444, 2005 WL 3477997 (Iowa Ct. App. Dec. 21, 2005), on which

procedendo issued in March 2006. Accordingly, Roach’s three-year window to

seek postconviction relief (PCR) closed in 2009. See Iowa Code § 822.3 (2009).

Yet he filed this PCR application—his sixth—in August 2023, summarily

challenging his convictions. The district court dismissed his application as time-

barred.

Roach appeals, arguing New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 597

U.S. 1 (2022) is a new ground of law that he could not raise before, which excepts

him from the statute of limitations in section 822.3. “But [Roach] 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 [Roach’s]

application.” Thongvanh v. State, No. 24-0783, 2025 WL 547744, at *1 (Iowa Ct.

App. Feb. 19, 2025).

Alternatively, Roach urges us to overrule our supreme court’s holding that

the statute of limitations in section 822.3 is constitutional. See Davis v. State, 443

N.W.2d 707, 710–11 (Iowa 1989) (“[D]ue process requires that the interest of the

state and the defendant be balanced in determining the reasonableness of a period

of limitations. . . . We believe that a three-year period after the conviction or appeal

is final is not unreasonable. We also believe the legislature, within its sound 3

discretion, may determine the proper limitation period.”). We cannot overrule our

supreme court. See State v. Beck, 854 N.W.2d 56, 64 (Iowa Ct. App. 2014).

Finally, Roach argues the district court should have concluded the 2019

amendment to section 822.3 prohibiting equitable tolling was unconstitutional,

struck down the amendment, and then adopted and applied equitable tolling in his

case. While Roach mentioned the issue of equitable tolling in his resistance to the

State’s motion to dismiss, the district court did not rule on the issue. So it is not

preserved for our review, and we do not consider it. See Meier v. Senecaut, 641

N.W.2d 532, 537 (Iowa 2002) (“When a district court fails to rule on an issue

properly raised by a party, the party who raised the issue must file a motion

requesting a ruling in order to preserve error for appeal.”).

We affirm the district court’s dismissal of Roach’s PCR application.

AFFIRMED.