MARTA COTO - ZANDERS, Plaintiff - Appellant, vs. STATE OF IOWA, Defendant - Appellee.
Annotate this Case
Download PDF
IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 8-1007 / 06-1628
Filed February 4, 2009
MARTA COTO-ZANDERS,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
vs.
STATE OF IOWA,
Defendant-Appellee.
________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Black Hawk County, Jon Fister,
Judge.
Postconviction relief claimant appeals the trial court’s dismissal.
AFFIRMED.
Dawn Wilson, Cedar Rapids, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Jean C. Pettinger, Assistant Attorney
General, Thomas J. Ferguson, County Attorney, and Kimberly A. Griffith,
Assistant County Attorney, for appellee.
Considered by Sackett, C.J., and Eisenhauer and Doyle, JJ.
2
EISENHAUER, J.
Marta Coto-Zanders appeals the trial court’s dismissal of her second
postconviction relief application. We uphold the trial court’s dismissal because
her claims were addressed and resolved in her first postconviction relief
proceeding.
In July 1998, after a jury trial, Coto-Zanders was convicted of possession
of marijuana with intent deliver and failure to affix a drug tax stamp. She was
sentenced to two, concurrent five-year prison terms. Coto-Zanders appealed. In
November 1999, the Iowa Supreme Court affirmed her conviction, but remanded
her case for resentencing. The court also preserved Coto-Zanders’s claim she
received ineffective assistance of counsel.
After a lengthy hearing on remand, Coto-Zanders was again sentenced to
two concurrent five-year prison terms.
She appealed and her sentence was
upheld by the Iowa Court of Appeals in February 2003.
In January 2004, Coto-Zanders filed for postconviction relief. She raised
three issues relevant to this appeal.
First, she argued her counsel was
ineffective in failing to notify her of the 2003 Iowa Court of Appeals decision in
time to seek further review. Additionally, she claimed her counsel was ineffective
in failing to adequately prepare and present evidence in support of her motion to
compel the identity of two confidential informants. Finally, she claimed counsel
was ineffective by failing to prepare and adequately present evidence in support
of her motion to suppress the search warrant.
After a hearing, the court
discussed each allegation and denied relief in April 2005. This postconviction
3
ruling was affirmed without opinion by the Iowa Court of Appeals in September
2007.
In March 2006, before the first postconviction appeal was resolved, CotoZanders filed a second application for postconviction relief. The State moved to
dismiss the application arguing Coto-Zanders was raising the same issues raised
in her first postconviction proceeding. After a hearing on the State’s motion, the
court agreed and dismissed her application in September 2006.
In October 2006, Coto-Zanders appealed and, in October 2007, the Iowa
Supreme Court granted Coto-Zanders’s application for a stay until the appeal of
her first postconviction case was resolved. In her stay application Coto-Zanders
stated: “Most, if not all, of the same issues that will be raised in the current
proceeding were raised in [the first postconviction action.]”
In this appeal, from the dismissal order of September 2006, Coto-Zanders
argues counsel was ineffective in not notifying her of the 2003 Iowa Court of
Appeals decision in time to seek further review. Further she claims counsel was
ineffective in adequately presenting evidence to support the motion to compel
and motion to suppress. Because these issues were addressed and resolved in
her first postconviction proceeding, we affirm the trial court’s dismissal.
United Fire & Cas. Co. v. Iowa Dist. Ct., 612 N.W.2d 101, 103 (Iowa 2000).
AFFIRMED.
See
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
