Ruthann Veal Vs. State Of Iowa ( 2010 )

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF IOWA
No. 08–1207
Filed February 26, 2010
RUTHANN VEAL,
Appellant,
vs.
STATE OF IOWA,
Appellee.
On review from the Iowa Court of Appeals.
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Black Hawk County,
Bradley J. Harris, Judge.
Petitioner seeks further review of the denial of her postconviction
relief application as barred by the applicable statute of limitations.
DECISION OF THE COURT OF APPEALS VACATED. DISTRICT
COURT JUDGMENT REVERSED, AND CASE REMANDED WITH
INSTRUCTIONS.
Bryan A. Stevenson and Aaryn M. Urell of the Equal Justice
Initiative of Alabama, Montgomery, Alabama, and Philip B. Mears of
Mears Law Office, Iowa City, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Thomas W. Andrews, Assistant
Attorney General, Thomas J. Ferguson, County Attorney, and
Kimberly A. Griffith, Assistant County Attorney, for appellee.
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APPEL, Justice.
Ruthann Veal appeals a district court ruling dismissing her
postconviction relief action, which challenged the constitutionality of her
sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole (LWOP).
In the district court, Veal argued that because her offense was committed
when she was a juvenile, the mandatory LWOP sentence for first-degree
murder amounted to cruel and unusual punishment under the Iowa and
United States Constitutions. The district court ruled that her claim was
untimely under our postconviction relief statute, which generally
requires that challenges to criminal convictions be brought within three
years. The court of appeals affirmed. On further review, we vacate the
decision of the court of appeals, reverse the decision of the district court,
and remand the case to the district court for further proceedings.
I. Factual and Procedural History.
In June 1993, Catherine Haynes was the victim of a homicide.
Veal was charged with first-degree murder in connection with her death.
At the time of the homicide, Veal was fourteen years old. In May 1995, a
Black Hawk County jury convicted Veal of first-degree murder. The
district court sentenced Veal, as required by statute, to life imprisonment
without the possibility of parole. Her conviction was upheld on direct
appeal. State v. Veal, 564 N.W.2d 797, 813 (Iowa 1997), overruled in part
on other grounds by State v. Hallum, 585 N.W.2d 249, 253 (Iowa 1998),
vacated by Hallum v. Iowa, 527 U.S. 1001, 119 S. Ct. 2335, 144 L. Ed.
2d 233 (1999).
Veal filed an application for postconviction relief on February 28,
2008. In her application, she contended her LWOP sentence amounted
to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment
to the United States Constitution and article I, section 17 of the Iowa
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Constitution. Veal did not, however, articulate a standard under the
cruel and unusual punishment clause of the Iowa Constitution different
from that employed by the United States Supreme Court under the
Eighth Amendment.
In order to avoid the three-year statute of limitations for
postconviction relief actions in Iowa Code section 822.3 (2007), Veal
asserted that her challenge could not have been raised earlier due to a
change in the law. In support of her argument, Veal cited Roper v.
Simmons, 543 U.S. 551, 125 S. Ct. 1183, 161 L. Ed. 2d 1 (2005). In
Roper, the Supreme Court of the United States held that the death
penalty could not be applied to persons who were less than eighteen
years of age at the time of the offense. Roper, 543 U.S. at 575, 125 S. Ct.
at 1198, 161 L. Ed. 2d at 25. In the alternative, Veal asserted that the
tardiness of her postconviction relief action was excused due to
ineffective assistance of counsel.
The district court found Veal’s postconviction relief action
untimely. The court held that Roper did not amount to “new law,” within
the meaning of the statutory exception to the three-year statute of
limitations. The district court believed that Roper was strictly limited to
death penalty cases and thus had no application to Veal’s LWOP
sentence. Veal appealed the dismissal, and the court of appeals
affirmed. We granted further review.
II. Standard of Review.
The issues presented in this case are all legal in nature. The
district court judgment is thus reviewable for correction of errors at law.
Iowa R. App. P. 6.907 (2009).
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III. Discussion.
A threshold question in this case is whether the district court had
jurisdiction to entertain Veal’s claim. Resolution of this issue is
controlled by our recent decision in State v. Bruegger, 773 N.W.2d 862
(Iowa 2009), a case decided after the district court judgment and court of
appeals decision in this case.
In Bruegger, we considered whether a challenge to a sentence
under the Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clauses of the United States
and Iowa Constitutions was a challenge to an “illegal sentence” under
Iowa Rule of Criminal Procedure 2.24(5)(a). Bruegger, 773 N.W.2d at
870–72. That rule provides, “The court may correct an illegal sentence at
any time.” Iowa R. Crim. P. 2.24(5)(a) (emphasis added). We held in
Bruegger that a cruel-and-unusual-punishment challenge amounted to a
claim that a sentence was illegal because it involved a claim that the
sentencing court lacked the power to impose a particular sentence.
Bruegger, 773 N.W.2d at 871.
This holding in Bruegger is fully applicable here. Under the
principles described in Bruegger, a claim that a sentence is illegal may be
raised at any time under Iowa Rule of Criminal Procedure 2.24(5)(a). Id.
Further, with respect to a claim of an illegal sentence, the ordinary rules
of issue preservation do not apply. Id.
Even if Veal’s claim may be regarded as a timely attack on an
illegal sentence under our rules of criminal procedure, the question
arises whether the time limitations of our postconviction relief statute are
applicable to claims involving illegal sentences. At oral argument,
counsel for the State candidly conceded that if the claim were regarded
as a challenge to an illegal sentence, as we have held, the time
restrictions in Iowa Code section 822.3 do not apply.
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Consistent with the State’s concession, we conclude that the time
restrictions that apply in ordinary postconviction relief actions do not
apply in illegal sentence challenges. A claim that a sentence is illegal
goes to the underlying power of the court to impose a sentence, not
simply to its legal validity. Id. As a result, Veal’s claim does not
constitute a postconviction relief action, so her case is not governed by
the postconviction statute of limitations.
Our court of appeals has assumed that claims of an illegal
sentence are not barred by the statute of limitations in Iowa Code section
822.3. See, e.g., State v. Chadwick, 586 N.W.2d 391, 392–93 (Iowa Ct.
App. 1998). Chadwick is consistent with numerous other cases across
the nation. See Kelley v. State, 985 So. 2d 972, 975 (Ala. Crim. App.
2007); Lovelace v. State, 785 S.W.2d 212, 213 (Ark. 1990); Williams v.
State, 848 So. 2d 389, 390 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2003); Housley v. State,
811 P.2d 495, 499 (Idaho Ct. App. 1991); State v. Parker, 711 So. 2d 694,
694–95 (La. 1998); Ivy v. State, 731 So. 2d 601, 603 (Miss. 1999); State v.
Murray, 744 A.2d 131, 134 (N.J. 2000). We agree with our court of
appeals and the relevant authority from other states—an illegal sentence
is a challenge to the underlying power of a court to impose a sentence
and is not a postconviction relief action subject to the limitations in Iowa
Code section 822.3.
For the above procedural reasons, we hold that the district court’s
order dismissing Veal’s challenge to her sentence on cruel-and-unusual-
punishment grounds must be reversed and the case remanded to the
district court. Although not labeled as such, the district court on
remand should treat her application for postconviction relief as a
challenge to an illegal sentence that is not subject to the three-year
statute of limitations in Iowa Code section 822.3. Cf. Buechel v. Five Star
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Quality Care, Inc., 745 N.W.2d 732, 735 (Iowa 2008) (treating an
improvidently filed direct appeal as an application for interlocutory
appeal).
IV. Conclusion.
For the above reasons, the decision of the court of appeals is
vacated, the judgment of the district court is reversed, and the matter
remanded to the district court for further proceedings.
DECISION OF THE COURT OF APPEALS VACATED. DISTRICT
COURT JUDGMENT REVERSED, AND CASE REMANDED WITH
INSTRUCTIONS.
All justices concur except Baker, J., who takes no part.