ALBERT WINFREY, Applicant-Appellant, vs. STATE OF IOWA, Respondent-Appellee.
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IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 9-316 / 08-0225
Filed June 17, 2009
ALBERT WINFREY,
Applicant-Appellant,
vs.
STATE OF IOWA,
Respondent-Appellee.
________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, Glenn E. Pille, Judge.
A postconviction applicant challenges his 2000 conviction for seconddegree murder, contending that it was impermissible for the court to instruct the
jury that malice could be implied through the commission of a forcible felony in
the context of a second-degree murder prosecution. AFFIRMED.
Gary Dickey of Dickey & Campbell Law Firm, P.L.C., Des Moines, for
appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Thomas Andrews, Assistant Attorney
General, John P. Sarcone, County Attorney, and James Ward, Assistant County
Attorney, for appellee State.
Considered by Vaitheswaran, P.J., and Potterfield and Doyle, JJ.
2
VAITHESWARAN, P.J.
Albert Winfrey, found guilty of second-degree murder in 2000, appeals the
district court’s denial of his second application for postconviction relief.
His
application was predicated on State v. Heemstra, 721 N.W.2d 549, 554 (Iowa
2006), in which the court was asked to decide “whether willful injury may be
considered a predicate for felony murder.” The court held as follows:
[I]f the act causing willful injury is the same act that causes the
victim’s death, the former is merged into the murder and therefore
cannot serve as the predicate felony for felony-murder purposes.
Id. at 558.
Winfrey contends that his case “presents a question left unanswered by
the Iowa Supreme Court in the wake of its holding in State v. Heemstra—that is,
whether it is permissible to imply malice aforethought from the commission of an
underlying forcible felony in the context of a charge of second-degree murder.”
Winfrey concedes “his appeal hinges on the retroactivity of the Heemstra
decision.” We turn, therefore, to the question of whether Heemstra, decided in
2006, was retroactively applicable to Winfrey, whose direct appeal from the
second-degree murder conviction was finalized in 2001.
The Iowa Supreme Court answered the retroactivity question in its final
Heemstra opinion, stating:
The rule of law announced in this case regarding the use of
willful injury as a predicate felony for felony-murder purposes shall
be applicable only to the present case and those cases not finally
resolved on direct appeal in which the issue has been raised in the
district court.
3
Heemstra, 721 N.W.2d at 558. The court later held that its refusal to apply
Heemstra retroactively did not violate federal due process. Goosman v. State,
764 N.W.2d 539, 545 (Iowa 2009). Together, these opinions leave no doubt that
Heemstra’s holding does not apply retroactively to Winfrey.
In light of this
conclusion, we need not address Winfrey’s request to expand Heemstra.
This leaves us with Winfrey’s pro se supplemental argument. He asserts
that the State filed a resistance to his postconviction relief application outside the
timeframe prescribed by rule, leaving the district court without “legal authority to
act on said resistance, as it lacked subject matter jurisdiction.”
Winfrey cites no authority for the proposition that non-compliance with the
timeframe for filing a resistance deprives a court of subject matter jurisdiction.
For that reason, we reject his argument.
We affirm the district court’s denial of Winfrey’s application for
postconviction relief.
AFFIRMED.
Doyle, J. concurs. Potterfield, J. concurs specially.
4
POTTERFIELD, J. (concurring specially)
I concur in the majority’s opinion that the district court correctly denied
Winfrey’s application for postconviction relief. However, I agree with the district
court that the supreme court’s decision in State v. Heemstra, 721 N.W.2d 549,
558 (Iowa 2006), limiting the use of willful injury as a predicate felony for felony
murder, has no application to Winfrey’s conviction for the lesser-included offense
of second-degree murder.
Winfrey complains that the trial court instructed the jury, in accordance
with Iowa Uniform Jury Instruction 700.9, that the element of malice “may be
inferred from the commission of Willful Injury which results in death.”
The
supreme court mentioned this instruction in Heemstra in the context of felony
murder.1 Winfrey contends the supreme court in Heemstra did not decide the
propriety of the inference of malice from the commission of willful injury in the
context of second-degree murder.2 I agree.
Because Heemstra does not implicate the jury instruction about which
Winfrey now complains, in the context of his conviction for second-degree
murder, this claim is time-barred. Iowa Code § 822.3 (2005). I would affirm the
ruling of the district court denying Winfrey’s second application for postconviction
relief.
1
The Supreme Court quoted Robert R. Rigg’s criticism of the use of willful injury as a
predicate felony: “Coupled with an instruction that malice may be inferred from the
commission of an assault, the application of Beeman creates an ever expanding felony
murder rule.” Heemstra, 721 N.W.2d at 555 (quoting 4 Robert R. Rigg, Iowa Practice
Criminal Law (I) § 3:16, at ___ (2006)).
2
Winfrey also argues, apparently in the alternative, that his claims are governed by
Heemstra and depend upon the retroactivity of the reinterpretation of the felony murder
rule in that case.
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