06-2084•William C. Scott Vs. State Of Iowa
Full text
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF IOWA
No. 06–2084
Filed April 17, 2009
WILLIAM C. SCOTT,
Appellant,
vs.
STATE OF IOWA,
Appellee.
On review from the Iowa Court of Appeals.
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Black Hawk County,
Bruce B. Zager, Judge.
Applicant appeals from the dismissal of his application for
postconviction relief asserting that it is unconstitutional to apply State v.
Heemstra prospectively only. AFFIRMED.
Jeremy B. A. Feitelson of Feitelson Law, L.L.C., West Des Moines,
for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Thomas S. Tauber, Assistant
Attorney General, Thomas J. Ferguson, County Attorney, and Kimberly
Griffith, Assistant County Attorney, for appellee.
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PER CURIAM:
In 2006, petitioner William Scott filed an application for
postconviction relief challenging his 1991 conviction for first-degree
murder. Scott claimed that his conviction was contrary to our recent
holding in State v. Heemstra, 721 N.W.2d 549 (Iowa 2006). In Heemstra
this court stated that its ruling applied only in cases on direct appeal
where the claim was preserved in the district court. Scott filed this
postconviction-relief application challenging the constitutionality of that
pronouncement.
Petitioner claims that federal due process requires the Heemstra
decision be applied to invalidate his conviction in his postconviction-
relief proceeding even though he did not raise the Heemstra issue on
direct appeal.
The district court dismissed the petition, and the court of appeals
affirmed. We granted further review to consider only whether federal due
process requires that the substantive holding of Heemstra be applied in
Scott’s postconviction-relief proceeding. For the reasons expressed in
Goosman v. State, ____ N.W.2d ____ (Iowa 2009), we affirm the judgment
of the court of appeals.
AFFIRMED.
All justices concur except Baker, J., who takes no part.
This opinion is not to be published.
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