King v. State
| Decision Date | 29 April 2011 |
| Docket Number | No. 08–0430.,08–0430. |
| Citation | 797 N.W.2d 565 |
| Parties | Daniel KING, Appellant,v.STATE of Iowa, Appellee. |
| Court | Iowa Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Wallace L. Taylor, Cedar Rapids, for appellant.Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Bridget A. Chambers, Assistant Attorney General, Harold L. Denton, County Attorney, and Todd D. Tripp, Assistant County Attorney, for appellee.APPEL, Justice.
The appellant, Daniel King, requests further review of the court of appeals' decision affirming his denial of postconviction relief. King argues his trial counsel was ineffective in not properly attacking DNA evidence offered by the State at trial. Upon our review of the record, we conclude that King has failed to show a reasonable probability that the verdict would have been different had trial counsel more adequately developed a response to the State's evidence. As a result, we affirm the decision of the district court denying King's application for postconviction relief.
This is a postconviction relief action filed by Daniel King to vacate his conviction for sexual abuse in the third degree in violation of Iowa Code sections 709.4(2)( c )(4) 1 and 901A.2(3) (2003). The State alleges that on April 25, 2004, King, who was twenty-two years old at the time, had sex with a fifteen-year-old girl. The girl, A.A., alleged the nonconsensual sex took place in the front passenger seat of King's car between the hours of 2 and 4 a.m. There were no witnesses to the alleged event.
Sometime during the afternoon of April 25, A.A. told her mother of the alleged incident. A.A.'s mother immediately called the police. Officer Mullen, from the Cedar Rapids Police Department, was dispatched to A.A.'s home. After being informed of A.A.'s sexual assault, Mullen requested the clothing A.A. had been wearing during the incident. A.A. informed Mullen that the clothing had not been washed and was lying in a pile on her bedroom floor. The clothing consisted of a pair of underwear, jeans, and a tank top. Mullen placed all three pieces of clothing in an unsealed paper bag. He then placed the unsealed bag in the trunk of his police car. The bag remained in the trunk of the police car until Mullen returned to the police department, where he delivered it to the department's evidence custodian. Upon delivery, it was placed in an evidence locker.
A.A. was taken to the emergency room where a nurse examined her and collected evidence for a sexual assault kit. Among other things, the nurse examining A.A. found large areas around the neck that looked like hickeys, purple bruising of both breasts, and a swollen rectum with tears. The nurse found these injuries consistent with sexual assault. The nurse also found abrasions in the vaginal area that suggested recent penetration.
On June 2, both the sexual assault kit and the paper bag containing A.A.'s clothing, along with buccal (DNA) swabs taken from King, were transported to the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) laboratory for examination. The technician who received the evidence testified that the paper bag containing A.A.'s clothing was not sealed when it arrived at the laboratory.
Before performing any tests, the DCI criminologist separated the three items of clothing and placed them in separate bags. The criminologist then examined the underwear. The criminologist found seminal fluid on the crotch of the underwear that contained an epithelial cell with King's DNA.
The criminologist also examined some of the other items related to the case. The criminologist examined the vaginal slides of A.A.'s rape kit, finding seminal fluid with some sperm. The criminologist, however, was unable to develop a DNA profile from the sperm. The swabs taken from both sides of A.A.'s neck revealed King's DNA. Swabs were also taken from each of A.A.'s breasts. A DNA profile could not be developed from the left breast swab, but a DNA profile from the right breast swab excluded King from being the donor. No DNA or seminal fluid was found on the oral, rectal, or dental swabs. The criminologist did not review debris swabs from the genital area.
To aid in examining the State's DNA evidence, King's trial counsel hired a DNA expert, Professor David Soll. King's attorney sent Soll the following letter:
I want to thank you for your willingness to review the D.C.I. Lab Report regarding the DNA findings and the State's discovery file against my client in this case.
I have enclosed for your compensation, a trust check from my law firm made out to you in the amount of $1,000.00.
Would you please contact me after you have reviewed the enclosed material with any opinions you may have regarding whether, or not, you can assist in Mr. King's defense?
The DCI laboratory report and the State's discovery file were sent along with this letter. A receipt detailing the evidence tested revealed that one of the exhibits was a paper bag containing the victim's underwear, jeans, and shirt worn the morning of the assault. The receipt also indicates the bag was not sealed. The receipt was included in the file of materials sent by King's counsel to Soll.
Upon receipt of the materials, Soll “skimmed everything.” He then proceeded to review the testing procedures used by the DCI. He determined that the laboratory used the correct methods for testing the DNA and its findings were accurate. King's attorney sent a letter to King and King's mother explaining Soll's conclusions.
Soll did not testify at King's trial. The jury found King guilty of sexual assault in the third degree. Because King had a prior conviction for assault with intent to commit sexual abuse, he was sentenced to an indeterminate term of twenty-five years in prison with an eighty-five percent mandatory minimum sentence. See Iowa Code § 901A.2(3).
After the trial, King's mother met with Soll “to see if there was anything that didn't seem right.” She presented Soll with the DCI report that showed that the three articles of clothing were placed in the same bag. Based on the DCI report and his review of other documents, Soll developed a few “pretty extreme” concerns. After reviewing these materials, Soll became concerned that the DNA found on A.A.'s underwear could have been transferred to the underwear from either her shirt or jeans, as all of A.A.'s clothing had been placed in the same paper bag. He further noted that the lack of sperm in the seminal fluid suggested a “big possibility” of cross-contamination, which produced a “bigger probability” that King was not the source of the seminal fluid.
King's mother took notes of her conversation with Soll and relayed Soll's concerns to her son's attorney. In response, defense counsel filed a motion for a new trial and/or a motion in arrest of judgment. In this motion, counsel claimed King should be granted a new trial because the underwear on which the DCI laboratory found King's DNA was placed in a bag with other clothing that may have cross-contaminated the underwear, making it an unreliable piece of evidence.
Attached to the motion was an affidavit by Soll. In this affidavit, Soll stated that, because the items of clothing that were worn by A.A. at the time of the alleged incident were placed together in a sack without being separated, there was an issue of cross-contamination. This raised doubts as to which article of clothing was the source of the DNA sample. Further, the seminal fluid in the underwear could not be matched to a particular person because there was no sperm in it. Additionally, there was no sperm in the vaginal slides to make an identification of the donor.
The district court denied the motion on the basis that the evidence could have been discovered previously and presented at trial. King appealed. On appeal, his counsel determined that any ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim he might have could not be decided on direct appeal, but only in a postconviction relief action in which a record could be more fully developed. As a result, appellate counsel filed a motion to dismiss the appeal as frivolous, which this court granted.
This postconviction action was filed pro se by King in December 2006. An amended application was later filed by King's attorney. In the amended application, King claimed that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to raise the issue of DNA cross-contamination at trial, failing to present additional testimony that contradicted A.A.'s testimony, and failing to present evidence of A.A.'s possible motives for accusing King of rape.
The district court denied King's application. The district court stated that it was Soll who failed to notice a possible cross-contamination problem with the evidence and that error could not be attributed to defense counsel. The district court further found that the failure to offer testimony from additional witnesses did not rise to ineffective assistance of counsel.
King appealed the district court's decision, and his appeal was routed to the court of appeals. The court of appeals affirmed the district court. King filed an application for further review with this court, which we granted.
We review claims of ineffective assistance of counsel de novo. State v. Lyman, 776 N.W.2d 865, 877 (Iowa 2010). In conducting our de novo review, “we give weight to the lower court's findings concerning witness credibility.” Ledezma v. State, 626 N.W.2d 134, 141 (Iowa 2001).
A. State vs. Federal Constitution. In this postconviction relief action, King presents an ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim. He does not, however, indicate whether the case has been brought under the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution or article I, section 10 of the Iowa Constitution. When there are parallel constitutional provisions in the federal and state constitutions and a party does not indicate the specific constitutional basis, we regard both federal and state...
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