IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 18-1124
Filed March 6, 2019
TROY ALAN HARTSON,
Applicant-Appellant,
vs.
STATE OF IOWA,
Respondent-Appellee.
________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Linn County, Lars Anderson and
Chad Kepros, Judges.
Troy Hartson appeals the dismissal of his application for postconviction
relief. AFFIRMED.
Wallace L. Taylor of Law Offices of Wallace L. Taylor, Cedar Rapids, for
appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Sharon K. Hall, Assistant Attorney
General, for appellee State.
Considered by Doyle, P.J., and Mullins and McDonald, JJ.
2
MULLINS, Judge.
Troy Hartson appeals the dismissal of his application for postconviction
relief (PCR) on statute-of-limitations grounds. He argues his application is based
on newly-discovered evidence and he is therefore excepted from the statute of
limitations. See Iowa Code § 822.3 (2017) (noting “limitation does not apply to a
ground of fact . . . that could not have been raised within the applicable time
period”); see also Moon v. State, 911 N.W.2d 137, 143–45 (Iowa 2018) (discussing
ground-of-fact-exception in relation to newly-discovered evidence); Harrington v.
State, 659 N.W.2d 509, 520–21 (Iowa 2003) (same). He also argues the court
erred in dismissing his application without affording him a hearing.
In 2004 and 2005, Hartson was charged with second-degree sexual abuse
and lascivious acts with a child. State v. Hartson, No. 05-1390, 2006 WL 1751028,
at *1 (Iowa Ct. App. June 28, 2006). Hartson moved for a competency hearing
prior to trial, he was evaluated, the district court found him competent to stand trial,
and he was ultimately convicted. Id. at *1–2. In 2006, this court affirmed the
competency finding and Hartson’s convictions. Id. at *3.
Hartson filed a pro se PCR application in September 2017.1 The claim he
raised in his application relevant to this appeal was that medical professionals were
dishonest in their testimony at his competency hearing, as shown by the allegation
that “immediately after [his] incarceration, contrary to their stated diagnosis for the
court,” the same medical professionals began treating him for the same issues he
claimed rendered him incompetent to stand trial. The State moved for dismissal,
1
Hartson has filed various PCR applications over the years.
3
arguing, among other things, Hartson’s application was barred by the three-year
statute of limitations contained in Iowa Code section 822.3.
In January 2018, the court entered a proposed dismissal ruling generally
concluding that the alleged newly-discovered evidence was available to Hartson
within the limitations period and Hartson therefore was not excepted from the
statute of limitations. The court allowed Hartson thirty days to submit a response
to the proposed dismissal order. Hartson’s court-appointed counsel filed an
amended application referencing, among other things, “material new evidence of
client’s mental condition as stated in his pro se application.” PCR counsel moved
for a hearing on dismissal. The State filed a supplemental motion to dismiss the
amended application, which Hartson resisted. The court denied the request for a
hearing, but allowed Hartson the opportunity to supplement his resistance to
dismissal. Hartson did not do so. In June, the court entered an order dismissing
Hartson’s PCR application. Hartson appeals. Our review is for correction of errors
at law. Castro v. State, 795 N.W.2d 789, 792 (Iowa 2011).
On appeal, Hartson argues the fact that he “was immediately placed in
psychiatric custody in prison and treated for the very conditions the witnesses
minimized” at his competency hearing amounts to newly-discovered evidence
sufficient to entitle him to the ground-of-fact exception to the three-year statute of
limitations. However, Hartson is not entitled to tolling if the ground of fact could
“have been raised within the applicable time period.” See Iowa Code § 822.3. The
ground of fact alleged here became known to Hartson, according to his application,
“immediately after [his] incarceration” commenced. Consequently, this is not a
“ground of fact . . . that could not have been raised within the applicable time
4
period.” Id. It could have been raised within the limitations period and therefore
does not serve to toll the statute of limitations. See Wilkins v. State, 522 N.W.2d
822, 824 (Iowa 1994) (noting exception is limited to “a ground that the applicant
was at least not alerted to in some way”).
We turn to the claim that the district court erred in dismissing the application
without a hearing. The district court followed the dismissal procedure contained in
paragraph two of Iowa Code section 822.6 by advising of its intention to dismiss
the application and the reasons for dismissal, and providing Hartson an opportunity
to respond. This is all that is required under a paragraph two dismissal. See
Anderson v. State, No. 16-0394, 2016 WL 7393900, at *2–3 (Iowa Ct. App. Dec.
21, 2016). In any event, the requirements of section 822.6 do not apply to
dismissals on statute-of-limitations grounds, and Hartson only appears to argue he
was entitled to a hearing on the claim involved in this appeal, which was dismissed
on that ground. See id.; Ramirez v. State, No. 13-1847, 2015 WL 4936386, at *2
(Iowa Ct. App. Aug. 19, 2015).
We affirm the dismissal of Hartson’s PCR application.
AFFIRMED.