IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 13-1049
Filed April 30, 2014
MOHAMED A. IBRAHIM,
Applicant-Appellant,
vs.
STATE OF IOWA,
Respondent-Appellee.
________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Marshall County, Michael J. Moon,
Judge.
An applicant appeals the court’s dismissal of his postconviction-relief
application. AFFIRMED.
Mark C. Smith, State Appellate Defender, and Shellie L. Knipfer, Assistant
Appellate Defender, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Kevin Cmelik, Assistant Attorney
General, Jennifer Miller, County Attorney, and James Scheetz, Assistant County
Attorney, for appellee.
Considered by Vogel, P.J., and Doyle and Mullins, JJ.
2
MULLINS, J.
Mohamed Ibrahim appeals the court’s summary dismissal of his
postconviction-relief (PCR) application, asserting his deportation is a ground of
fact that could not have been raised within the three-year statute of limitations
applicable to PCR applications. He was convicted of various offenses on May
29, 2008, and no appeal was filed. In 2012 Ibrahim was ordered to be removed
from the country based on his criminal history when he applied for citizenship.
He filed an application for PCR on May 7, 2012, asserting counsel failed to
ensure critical proceedings and documents were translated for him, failed to
advise him of the immigration consequences of his guilty pleas, and the district
court failed to advise him of the immigration consequences as well. The State
filed a motion to dismiss based on the three-year statute of limitations for PCR
actions. After a hearing, the district court granted the motion to dismiss.
The case of Padilla v. Kentucky, 130 S. Ct. 1473, 1486 (2010), does not
have retroactive application. See Chaidez v. United States, 133 S. Ct. 1103,
1113 (2013). Ibrahim’s conviction was final before Padilla was decided, and
therefore, Ibrahim cannot take advantage of Padilla’s holding that counsel owed
him a duty to explain the immigration consequences of the guilty pleas. See
Perez v. State, 816 N.W.2d 354, 355 (Iowa 2012) (noting that if it is decided
Padilla does not have retroactive application, the defendant cannot rely upon it to
set aside an earlier conviction). In addition, Ibrahim failed to file his PCR
application within the applicable three-year statute of limitations. While Ibrahim
may not have known of the deportation consequences until he was arrested and
3
the order of deportation was issued, the immigration consequences of his pleas
were in existence during the three-year limitations period and a claim of a “lack of
knowledge ‘is not provided as a ground for exception from the effects of the
statute of limitations.’” Lopez-Penaloza v. State, 804 N.W.2d 537, 542 (Iowa Ct.
App. 2011) (citation omitted). We therefore summarily affirm the district court’s
dismissal of Ibrahim’s PCR application pursuant to Iowa Court Rule 21.26(a) and
(c).
AFFIRMED.