IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 13-0620
Filed July 30, 2014
STATE OF IOWA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
vs.
JASON M. CURTIS,
Defendant-Appellant.
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Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Pottawattamie County, James M.
Richardson (Motion to Suppress) and Mark J. Eveloff (Jury Trial and
Sentencing), Judges.
A defendant challenges his conviction based upon the ineffective
assistance of counsel. AFFIRMED.
Mark C. Smith, State Appellate Defender, and Patricia Reynolds, Assistant
Appellate Defender, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Sharon K. Hall, Assistant Attorney
General, Matthew D. Wilbur, County Attorney, and Amy L. Zacharias, Assistant
County Attorney, for appellee.
Heard by Vaitheswaran, P.J., and Tabor and Bower, JJ.
2
VAITHESWARAN, P.J.
James Curtis appeals his judgment and sentence for first-degree murder
and child endangerment causing death. He contends his trial attorneys were
ineffective in: (1) failing to object to comments made by the prosecutor during
trial and closing argument, (2) failing to timely and adequately object to the
State’s efforts to impeach a defense expert with extrinsic evidence, and (3) failing
to object to the admission of those portions of a recorded interview in which
Curtis considered invoking his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent.
Curtis and the State acknowledge that, ordinarily, ineffective-assistance-
of-counsel claims are preserved for postconviction relief proceedings. See State
v. Biddle, 652 N.W.2d 191, 203 (Iowa 2002) (noting we generally preserve
ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims for postconviction relief proceedings
“where an adequate record of the claim can be developed and the attorney
charged with providing ineffective assistance may have an opportunity to
respond to defendant's claims”). We conclude these claims should be preserved
for postconviction relief.
AFFIRMED.