Hrbek v. State

• Decision Date: 16 April 2021
• Docket Number: No. 19-1571,19-1571
• Citation: 958 N.W.2d 779
• Parties: John Lee HRBEK, Appellant, v. STATE of Iowa, Appellee.
• Court: Iowa Supreme Court

958 N.W.2d 779

John Lee HRBEK, Appellant,

v.STATE of Iowa, Appellee.

No. 19-1571

Supreme Court of Iowa.

Submitted December 16, 2020

Filed April 16, 2021

Rehearing Denied May 19, 2021

Philip B. Mears of Mears Law Office, Iowa City, for appellant.

Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Louis S. Sloven, Assistant Attorney General, Matthew D. Wilber, County Attorney, and Patrick A. Sondag, Assistant County Attorney, for appellee.

McDonald, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which Waterman, Mansfield, and Oxley, JJ., joined. McDermott, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which Christensen, C.J., and Appel, J., joined.

McDONALD, Justice.

In the spring of 2019, the legislature passed and the governor signed an omnibus crime bill. See 2019 Iowa Acts ch. 140. As relevant here, effective July 1, 2019, the new law prohibits postconviction-relief applicants represented by counsel from filing "any pro se document, including an application, brief, reply brief, or motion, in any Iowa court." Id. § 35 (codified at Iowa Code § 822.3A (2020)). The questions presented in this appeal involve the applicability and constitutionality of the new law as applied to pending postconviction-relief proceedings and postconviction-relief appeals.

I.

For the past thirty-four years, John Hrbek has been litigating a still-pending application for postconviction relief in an attempt to vacate his convictions for two counts of murder in the first degree. See generally State v. Hrbek , 336 N.W.2d 431, 437 (Iowa 1983) (conditionally affirming defendant's murder convictions); Hrbek v. State , No. 13–1619, 2015 WL 6087572, at *1, *3 (Iowa Ct. App. Oct. 14, 2015) (discussing the "bizarre procedural history of the PCR action" and ordering reinstatement of the postconviction case). Although Hrbek has been and continues to be represented by counsel in his postconviction case, Hrbek regularly files pro se supplemental documents in support of his application.

While Hrbek's case was pending, the legislature enacted an omnibus crime bill that prohibits represented postconviction-relief applicants from filing pro se supplemental documents in any postconviction-relief proceeding or postconviction appeal. In full, the new law provides:

1. An applicant seeking relief under section 822.2 who is currently represented by counsel shall not file any pro se document, including an application, brief, reply brief, or motion, in any Iowa court. The court shall not consider, and opposing counsel shall not respond to, such pro se filings.

2. This section does not prohibit an applicant for postconviction relief from proceeding without the assistance of counsel.

3. A represented applicant for postconviction relief may file a pro se motion seeking disqualification of counsel, which a court may grant upon a showing of good cause.

Iowa Code § 822.3A. The new law went into effect on July 1, 2019.

In August 2019, pursuant to the omnibus crime bill, the district court entered an order prohibiting Hrbek from filing any additional pro se supplemental documents in his postconviction-relief proceeding. The district court directed Hrbek to forward any such documents to his counsel instead.

This court granted Hrbek's application for interlocutory appeal of the district court's order. Although Hrbek is represented by counsel in this appeal, he moved to file pro se supplemental briefs in support of his appeal. See Iowa R. App. P. 6.901(2)(a ) (providing "[a]ny ... applicant for postconviction relief ... may submit a pro se supplemental brief ... within 15 days after service of the proof brief filed by their counsel"). The State filed a resistance to Hrbek's motion and requested this court disallow the filings pursuant to the new omnibus crime bill. We ordered the issue be submitted with the merits of the appeal.

Hrbek raises several arguments contesting the applicability and constitutionality of section 822.3A. Hrbek contends the new law is inapplicable here because the new law should not be applied retrospectively to postconviction-relief proceedings pending on the effective date of the statute. If section 822.3A is applicable here, Hrbek contends the new law is unconstitutional and void. Specifically, Hrbek contends section 822.3A violates the separation-of-powers doctrine and violates Hrbek's right to file pro se supplemental documents in postconviction-relief proceedings and appeals.

II.

Hrbek first contends section 822.3A is inapplicable here because the new law should not be applied retrospectively to postconviction-relief proceedings pending on the effective date of the statute. According to Hrbek, his right to file pro se supplemental documents vested in 1987 when he filed his application for postconviction relief. He argues the application of section 822.3A to now bar him from filing pro se supplemental documents would be an unlawful retrospective application of the statute.

Whether a statute applies retrospectively, prospectively, or both is simply a question regarding the correct temporal application of a statute. See Landgraf v. USI Film Prods. , 511 U.S. 244, 291, 114 S. Ct. 1522, 1524, 128 L.Ed.2d 229 (1994) (Scalia, J., concurring in the judgment) (stating the "temporal application of a statute" is a "mundane question"). The determination of the correct temporal application of a statute is a three-part inquiry. First, the court must determine whether application of a statute is in fact retrospective. Second, if the court determines application of a statute is in fact retrospective, then the court must determine whether the statute should be applied retrospectively. Third, if the court determines a statute should be applied retrospectively, then the court must determine whether a constitutional rule prohibits retrospective application of the statute.

With respect to the first part of the inquiry, application of a statute is in fact retrospective when a statute applies a new rule, standard, or consequence to a prior act or omission. See Frideres v. Schiltz , 540 N.W.2d 261, 264 (Iowa 1995) (en banc) ("A law is retroactive if it affects acts or facts which occurred, or rights which accrued, before the law came into force."). The prior act or omission is the event of legal consequence "that the rule regulates." Landgraf , 511 U.S. at 291, 114 S. Ct. at 1524. The event of legal consequence is the specific conduct regulated in the statute. See id. ("The critical issue, I think, ... is the relevant activity that the rule regulates."); Miss. Dep't of Corr. v. Roderick & Solange MacArthur Just. Ctr. , 220 So. 3d 929, 940 (Miss. 2017) (en banc) (Dickinson, J., concurring in result only) ("In other words, to determine whether the statutory amendment should apply, a court must understand what event or conduct the statute will control.").

The application of section 822.3A to Hrbek's pending postconviction-relief case and this interlocutory postconviction appeal is not a retrospective application of the statute within any common-sense understanding of the term "retrospective." The statute prohibits represented postconviction applicants from filing pro se supplemental documents in any Iowa court. The event of legal consequence is the filing of pro se supplemental documents. The new law went into effect on July 1, 2019, but all of the events of legal consequence occur after that date. The district court's order was entered in August 2019. Hrbek filed his application for interlocutory appeal on September 20, 2019. Hrbek had his counsel file a final pro se supplemental brief and reply brief in this appeal on August 24, 2020, more than one year after the effective date of the statute.

Application of a statute to conduct occurring after the effective date is in fact a prospective and not retrospective application. See Miller v. LaSalle Bank Nat'l Ass'n , 595 F.3d 782, 788 (7th Cir. 2010) (analyzing the relevant retroactivity event and concluding statute had no retroactive effect); Combs v. Comm'r of Soc. Sec. , 459 F.3d 640, 648–49 (6th Cir. 2006) ("A focus on the ‘relevant activity’ in this case leads inexorably to the conclusion that the change in the regulation was not impermissibly retroactive. ... [T]he regulatory change had no retroactive effect because the presumption defined by the listing is a rule of adjudication and therefore has its effect on claims at the time of adjudication."); United States v. Nunemacher , 362 F.3d 682, 685–86 (10th Cir. 2004) (holding new standard of appellate review applied notwithstanding that it was adopted after the proceedings in the trial court were concluded); United States v. Mallon , 345 F.3d 943, 946 (7th Cir. 2003) (same); United States v. Holloman , 765 F. Supp. 2d 1087, 1091 (C.D. Ill. 2011) ("Therefore, the relevant retroactivity event is the sentencing date, not the date the offense was committed, because the application of a mandatory minimum is a sentencing factor, not an element of the offense. Accordingly, the application of the FSA is the prospective application of current law, not a retroactive exercise." (emphasis omitted)); Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 263 (2012) ("But what about a change in the rules governing admission of evidence ... Would it be retroactive ... for that new rule to apply to a trial conducted after its enactment but dealing with an alleged crime committed before its enactment? No, because retroactivity ought to be judged with regard to the act or event that the statute is meant to regulate." (emphasis omitted)). Thus, the application of section 822.3A to pending postconviction cases and postconviction appeals is not prohibited by any rule regarding the retrospective application of statutes.

Hrbek's position—that he has a vested right to forever avail himself of the filing and briefing rules in place when he filed his postconviction-relief application in 1987—is untenable. No serious person could contend the procedures governing each and every...