JUSTIN AUMAN KEENE , Applicant - Appellant, vs. STATE OF IOWA, Respondent - Appellee.
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IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 8-1005 / 05-0988
Filed March 11, 2009
JUSTIN AUMAN KEENE,
Applicant-Appellant,
vs.
STATE OF IOWA,
Respondent-Appellee.
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Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Dubuque County, Monica Ackley,
Judge.
Justin Keene appeals from the summary denial of his third application for
postconviction relief. REVERSED AND REMANDED.
Dawn Wilson, Cedar Rapids, and Jean J. Curtis, Guttenberg, for
appellant.
Justin Keene, pro se.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Thomas Andrews, Assistant Attorney
General, Ralph Potter, County Attorney, and Christine O. Corken, Assistant
County Attorney, for appellee.
Considered by Sackett, C.J., and Vaitheswaran and Potterfield, JJ.
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VAITHESWARAN, J.
In 1998, Justin Keene pled guilty and was sentenced to criminal
transmission of HIV and dissemination of obscene material to a minor.
He
subsequently filed direct appeals, a habeas corpus action, and three
postconviction relief applications.
This appeal is from the district court’s
summary denial of Keene’s third postconviction relief application.
The procedural history of that application is as follows. After it was filed,
the State filed a resistance, requesting summary denial of the application on the
basis that “the grounds raised by [Keene] have previously been raised and
resolved.” The State served the resistance on Keene by United States mail at
the Iowa State Penitentiary. On the same day the resistance was mailed to
Keene, the district court signed an order denying the application based on “res
judicata.” Keene filed a motion to reconsider. The motion was denied and this
appeal followed.
Keene preliminarily asserts that he was not granted a hearing on his third
application for postconviction relief. This argument is dispositive.
The State’s resistance was essentially a motion for summary disposition of
Keene’s third postconviction relief application. See Iowa Code § 822.6 (2005);
Manning v. State, 654 N.W.2d 555, 559 (Iowa 2002). That type of disposition is
permissible, but not before a postconviction relief applicant has been afforded an
opportunity to respond. See Brown v. State, 589 N.W.2d 273, 275 (Iowa Ct. App.
1998) (“[W]here a motion to dismiss an application for postconviction relief has
been filed, proper service has been made on the nonmoving party, and the
nonmoving party has been afforded under [the summary judgment rule] an
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adequate time to respond and fails to do so, the court may summarily dismiss the
application as a matter of default judgment.” (emphasis added)). Keene was not
afforded that opportunity, as the State’s motion was decided on the same day it
was served. While he is not automatically entitled to a hearing on the State’s
motion and may not be entitled to an evidentiary hearing, he is entitled to
respond to the State’s filing and to have his response considered before a ruling
is issued. Id.; see also Manning, 654 N.W.2d at 562 (remanding for evidentiary
hearing on merits of the claims).
Accordingly, we reverse the district court’s
summary denial of Keene’s third postconviction relief application and remand for
further proceedings.
REVERSED AND REMANDED.
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