Patrick Ryan Daniels v. State of Iowa

Opinion

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

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No. 25-0859

Filed September 2, 2026

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Patrick Ryan Daniels, Applicant–Appellant,

v.

State of Iowa,

Respondent–Appellee.

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Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Pottawattamie County, The Honorable Craig M. Dreismeier, Judge.

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AFFIRMED

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Alexander Smith of Parrish Kruidenier L.L.P., Des Moines, attorney for appellant.

Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Aaron Rogers, Assistant Attorney General, attorneys for appellee.

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Considered without oral argument by Tabor, C.J., and Chicchelly and Sandy, JJ.

Opinion by Tabor, C.J.

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TABOR, Chief Judge.

Patrick Daniels appeals the district court’s order dismissing his application for postconviction relief. He contends that the court wrongfully denied his postconviction counsel’s request to withdraw and that counsel’s failure to make any argument against dismissal constituted structural error. Finding no merit in his contentions, we affirm.

I. Facts and Prior Proceedings

Daniels pleaded guilty to domestic abuse assault by strangulation in violation of Iowa Code section 708.2A(5) (2020), a class “D” felony, and received a five-year suspended sentence in August 2021. The district court ordered that he receive credit for time served as provided in Iowa Code sections 903A.5 and 901.6. One month later, he violated the terms of his probation. In November 2021, the court found him in contempt of court and modified the terms of his probation so that he would report to a residential correctional facility. One month later, he again violated the terms of his probation. In January 2022, the court revoked his probation and imposed the original five-year indeterminate sentence. Like the original disposition, the new sentencing order specified that Daniels be given credit for any time served in connection with this case.

In November 2023, Daniels moved to correct an illegal sentence. The pro se motion alleged that he did not receive credit for twenty-six days he had served in the Pottawattamie County jail. The district court found “nothing illegal about the sentence imposed.”

In March 2024, Daniels sought postconviction relief. Reprising the time-served issue, his pro se application alleged that the Iowa Department of Corrections failed to give him credit for twenty-six days he spent

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incarcerated. The district court appointed Arielle Lipman to serve as postconviction counsel.

After engaging in discovery, Lipman negotiated a deal on Daniels’s behalf. The State agreed that Daniels would receive credit for 109 days that he served in jail and sixteen days that he served at the residential facility, for a total of 125 days. In April 2024, the district court ordered the Department of Corrections to apply those credits to Daniels’s sentence. In return, according to Lipman, her client agreed to dismiss his postconviction application.

But when Lipman sent the voluntary dismissal paperwork to Daniels at the Iowa State Penitentiary where he was incarcerated, he did not return a signed copy as she requested. Then counsel “lost contact with him,” not knowing his location for about one year. In April 2025, she sent the dismissal documents to Daniels at the Sarpy County Jail in Nebraska, his last known address. She later heard from the State that he was housed in the Pottawattamie County jail. When she reached out to him there, he “wavered a little bit” about signing the voluntary dismissal.

Meanwhile, the postconviction application was scheduled for trial in May 2025. When the district court learned that Daniels intended to voluntarily dismiss the application but did not follow through after his release from prison, the court changed the trial date to a status hearing. That April 23 order advised: “If Mr. Daniels does not contact his counsel or appear for the hearing, the court may enter a dismissal, since it is the applicant’s burden in this type of proceeding.”

For the May 23 status hearing, the district court arranged for Daniels to appear telephonically from jail. But he refused to participate.

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Attorney Lipman described her actions in securing the agreement for Daniels. She recalled his reluctance to sign the voluntary dismissal, adding “I spoke with him again today, and that conversation ultimately resulted in him hanging up on me.” Pointing to that “breakdown in communication,” Lipman asked to withdraw from his representation:

In light of him hanging up on me, in light of him not wanting to sign the agreement that would imply that I had potentially done something, you know, maybe that would constitute ineffective assistance. I’m not exactly sure what Mr. Daniels wants at this time. So that would be my request, is to withdraw and a continuance to allow new counsel to ascertain what his position is.

The State resisted Lipman’s request to continue the matter and urged the district court to dismiss Daniels’s postconviction application, noting that it was his burden to go forward and “he’s not provided any specific facts or information that a Court can even find in his favor.”

That same day, the district court denied Lipman’s request to withdraw, denied the motion to continue, and dismissed the postconviction application. The court noted that it had admonished Daniels that he would face dismissal if he did not appear or otherwise communicate with counsel:

Mr. Daniels has simply chosen to not participate in this proceeding. It would be speculative at best that he had any concerns about Ms. Lipman’s representations of him in this action. To the contrary, Ms. Lipman actually brokered an agreement on Mr. Daniels’s behalf and the State of Iowa which was the basis of this current PCR action. To say she may not have zealously represented Mr. Daniel’s interest is simply unwarranted.

Daniels appeals that dismissal.

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II. Scope and Standards of Review

We generally review an appeal from the denial of postconviction relief for the correction of legal error. Lado v. State, 804 N.W.2d 248, 250 (Iowa 2011). But we review constitutional issues de novo. Id. Here, Daniels focuses on his legal representation. Although his right to counsel in a postconviction proceeding is statutory, we still apply a de novo review. Id. Within that de novo review, we consider whether the district court’s denial of the request for substitute counsel constituted an abuse of discretion. Mockmore v. State, No. 01-1632, 2002 WL 1758216, at *1 (Iowa Ct. App. July 31, 2002).

III. Analysis

Daniels advances two grounds for reversing the dismissal of his postconviction application. First, he argues the court should have granted Lipman’s request to withdraw and appointed substitute counsel. Second, he ventures that counsel’s failure to object to dismissal at the status hearing amounted to a structural error. We address each argument in turn.

A. Motion to Withdraw

When an applicant represented by court-appointed counsel requests a new attorney, sufficient cause must be shown to justify appointing a replacement. See State v. Tejeda, 677 N.W.2d 744, 749 (Iowa 2004). “A complete breakdown in communication between an attorney and [their client] is sufficient cause justifying the appointment of substitute counsel.” State v. Wells, 738 N.W.2d 214, 219 (Iowa 2007). When the court is apprised of a potential breakdown in communications, the judge must ask the client about the cause and duration of the strife. Tejeda, 677 N.W.2d at 750.

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The court couldn’t do that here because Daniels chose not to participate in the proceeding. Ignoring his voluntary absence from the status hearing, Daniels now asserts: “Counsel did not have the full reasons for why there was a breakdown in communication, and the court did not inquire further with [the applicant].” 1 But Daniels offers no authority for the proposition that the district court must track down a postconviction applicant who refuses to appear at a scheduled hearing to inquire into the health of the attorney-client relationship. As the court noted from the bench, “Mr. Daniels has simply chosen in this situation to not avail himself to the benefits of the action he, himself, initiated.” We find no abuse of discretion in denying counsel’s motion to withdraw and request for a continuance.

In its April 23 order, the court indicated its intent to dismiss the application if Daniels did not contact his attorney or appear for the May 23 status hearing. Dismissal without hearing on the merits is proper when the applicant is not entitled to relief and no purpose would be served by any further proceedings. See Iowa Code § 822.6(2) (2024). Lipman advised the court that she sent a copy of the April 23 order to Daniels at the Sarpy County jail, but it was returned undelivered. Then, at the May 23 hearing, Lipman updated the court that she had “reached out” to her client at the Pottawattamie County jail. He had received the dismissal at the jail, knew about the hearing, and decided not to participate. On this record, we find that

1 In his appellant’s brief, Daniels states: “The record makes it appear that [he] was unhappy with the resolution in the criminal case (possibly because he received only 16 days of additional credit as opposed to 26).” In its appellee’s brief, the State contends that claim was not preserved for appellate review: “the reason Daniels offers on appeal—that he may have wanted more credit for time served—was something he did not tell the district court.” We agree with the State that Daniels did not preserve error on the source of the alleged discord with his counsel.

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Daniels had an opportunity to raise any claims on which relief could be granted but declined to do so. Dismissal was proper under section 822.6(2).

B. Structural Error

Daniels next argues that Lipman’s “failure to make any argument against dismissal constitutes structural error.” This argument fails on both factual and legal grounds.

On the facts, it is inaccurate to say that Lipman did not argue against dismissal. She indeed asked for a continuance so that new counsel could “ascertain what [Daniels’s] position is.”

On the law, this case does not involve structural error. A structural error is more than a mistake in a legal proceeding; it is a deficiency “affecting the framework within which the trial proceeds.” Lado, 804 N.W.2d at 252 (quoting Arizona v. Fulminante, 499 U.S. 279, 310 (1991)). Iowa courts recognize structural error occurs when: (1) the court denies counsel at a crucial stage of the proceeding; (2) counsel does not put the State’s case to meaningful adversarial testing; or (3) circumstances justify a presumption of ineffectiveness, for instance when counsel has an actual conflict of interest. Id. For claims of structural error, the applicant doesn’t need to show specific prejudice because the proceeding is presumptively unreliable. Ruiz v. State, 18 N.W.3d 453, 458 (Iowa 2025).

In Lado, our supreme court decided that a court-appointed attorney committed structural error by constructively denying the postconviction applicant the right to counsel. 804 N.W.2d at 253. In that case, the State alleged Lado’s application was subject to dismissal under Iowa Rule of Civil Procedure 1.944. Id. at 250. But Lado’s counsel “sat silent and did not

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respond.” Id. at 252. So, the court dismissed the application for failure to prosecute. Id. at 252-53.

In Ruiz, 18 N.W.3d at 458–59, the supreme court found that Lado’s structural error analysis did not apply because the district court dismissed Ruiz’s second application for postconviction relief as time-barred and it was unclear how his complaints about his first postconviction counsel would have tolled or extended the limitations period. The court explained: “We need not speculate over what may have happened had Ruiz’s counsel made the argument he now proposes about his first [postconviction] counsel’s ineffectiveness because it still would have required dismissal under Iowa Code section 822.3.” Id. at 459.

This case is more akin to Ruiz than Lado. It is unclear what action Daniels believes Lipman should have taken when the court expressed its intent to dismiss. 2 Her move to withdraw—trying to leave an option for Daniels to allege her ineffectiveness through new counsel—did not breach an essential duty. Because Daniels refused to participate in the hearing, counsel had no other argument to make against dismissal. This record reveals no error, much less structural error.

AFFIRMED.

2 In his reply brief, Daniels asserts, “the court knows exactly what arguments counsel should have made to prevent dismissal (the court had no authority to dismiss).” But we don’t. And we disagree that the district court lacked authority to dismiss his application under Iowa Code section 822.6(2).