IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
No. 20-0259
Filed July 21, 2021
CHAD ENDERLE,
Applicant-Appellant,
vs.
STATE OF IOWA,
Respondent-Appellee.
________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Scott County, Mary E. Howes,
Judge.
Chad Enderle appeals the district court’s dismissal of his application for
postconviction relief. AFFIRMED.
Jack E. Dusthimer, Davenport, for appellant.
Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Linda J. Hines, Assistant Attorney
General, for appellee.
Considered by Vaitheswaran, P.J., and Greer and Schumacher, JJ.
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SCHUMACHER, Judge.
Chad Enderle appeals the district court order dismissing his application for
postconviction relief (PCR). We affirm the dismissal.
I. Background Facts & Proceedings
Enderle was charged with first-degree murder in violation of Iowa Code
section 707.2(2) (2003) and willful injury in violation of section 708.4(1) on
November 26, 2003. The jury was instructed that in order to find Enderle guilty on
the murder count, the State would have to prove Enderle either: “(a) acted willfully,
deliberately, premeditatedly and with a specific intent to kill [victim]; or (b) was
participating in the offense of Willful Injury resulting in serious injury to [victim].”
See Enderle v. State, No. 12-1635, 2014 WL 956018, at *1 (Iowa Ct. App. Mar. 12,
2014). The jury found Enderle guilty as charged. Id.
Enderle appealed his convictions. While the direct appeal was pending, the
Iowa Supreme Court decided State v. Heemstra, wherein the court overruled
existing precedent relating to the felony-murder rule. 721 N.W.2d 549, 558 (Iowa
2006). It declared, “If 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. On rehearing, the court
modified the opinion to state, “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.” Id.; see Goosman
v. State, 764 N.W.2d 539, 542 (Iowa 2009). Enderle sought to amend his appellate
brief to include argument based on the change in the felony-murder rule; however,
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his request was denied. The supreme court affirmed Enderle’s convictions. See
State v. Enderle, 745 N.W.2d 438, 443 (Iowa 2007).
On February 10, 2009, Enderle filed his first PCR application, arguing,
among other things, “that retroactive application of Heemstra is mandated by the
federal and state due process and equal protection clauses and the Iowa
Constitution’s separation of powers clause.” Enderle, 2014 WL 956018, at *1–2.
Enderle’s application was denied. He appealed, and this court affirmed. Id. at *5.
Currently before this court is Enderle’s appeal from the dismissal of his
second PCR application, which was filed October 17, 2016.1 On May 31, 2018,
the State filed a motion for summary disposition, and Enderle resisted. On June
18, the district court granted the State’s motion and summarily dismissed Enderle’s
application finding it “a re-filing of the claims previously made in the applicant’s
direct appeal of his conviction and prior postconviction relief case” and untimely
pursuant to Iowa Code section 822.3 (2016).
On July 3, Enderle filed a motion to reconsider or enlarge the district court’s
order. The State also filed a motion to reconsider or enlarge on July 10. On
September 18, 2019, Enderle filed a motion for a ruling on his motion to reconsider
or enlarge. On October 15, the district court issued an order indicating that by not
issuing a new order, it had implicitly denied the motion. Enderle appealed. On its
own motion, the Iowa Supreme Court reversed the district court’s October 15 order
1 In addition to the direct appeal of his criminal conviction and subsequent PCR
actions, Enderle also separately appealed the denial of his request for
postconviction DNA testing, pursuant to Iowa Code section 81.10 (2018). This
court affirmed the denial. See State v. Enderle, No. 20-0308, 2021 WL 210763, at
*3 (Iowa Ct. App. Jan. 21, 2021).
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and remanded for the court to rule on Enderle’s motion to reconsider or enlarge.2
On January 29, 2020, the district court declined Enderle’s request to reconsider
but enlarged its ruling to find Enderle had not established a new ground of law for
which his untimely application could be excused as the change announced in
Heemstra did not require retroactive application to his conviction as a change in a
substantive rule of constitutional law and Enderle’s remaining constitutional claims
had been previously addressed in his initial application. Enderle appeals.
II. Standard of Review
We review a district court's decision dismissing a PCR application for the
correction of errors at law. Harrington v. State, 659 N.W.2d 509, 519 (Iowa 2003).
“Thus, we will affirm if the trial court’s findings of fact are supported by substantial
evidence and the law was correctly applied.” Id. at 520.
III. Discussion
Iowa Code section 822.3 requires that an application for postconviction
relief “must be filed within three years from the date the conviction or decision is
final or, in the event of an appeal, from the date the writ of procedendo is issued.”
However, the three-year statutory limitation “does not apply to a ground of fact or
law that could not have been raised within the applicable time period.” Iowa Code
§ 822.3. Enderle “has the burden to show his application comes within the
exception to the three-year statute of limitations.” Sihavong v. State, No. 14-0440,
2016 WL 351286, at *1 (Iowa Ct. App. Jan. 27, 2016) (citing Cornell v. State, 529
N.W.2d 606, 610 (Iowa Ct. App. 1994)).
2 As the State’s motion to reconsider or enlarge was not timely, the remand order
from the Supreme Court did not require the district court to address such motion.
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Here, procedendo was issued from Enderle’s direct appeal on March 10,
2008. The PCR application at issue was filed on October 17, 2016, eight years
later. Enderle acknowledges his application was filed outside the three-year
statutory period and that the Iowa Supreme Court has refused to apply Heemstra
retroactively in the past. However, Enderle argues the United States Supreme
Court cases Montgomery v. Louisiana, 577 U.S. 190 (2016) and Welch v. United
States, 578 U.S. ___, 136 S. Ct. 1257 (2016), after the dismissal of his initial
application was affirmed, impact the constitutionality of Heemstra’s prospective
application and furnish new grounds for which his claims should be reconsidered.
In Montgomery, the Supreme Court held “when a new substantive rule of
constitutional law controls the outcome of a case, the Constitution requires state
collateral review courts to give retroactive effect to that rule.” 577 U.S. at 200. The
Supreme Court in Welch described substantive constitutional rules requiring
retroactive applicability on collateral review as those that
alter[ ] the range of conduct or the class of persons that the law
punishes” and includes “decisions that narrow the scope of a criminal
statute by interpreting its terms, as well as constitutional
determinations that place particular conduct or persons covered by
the statute beyond the State’s power to punish.
578 U.S. at ___, 136 S. Ct. at 1264–65 (citations and quotation marks omitted).
Enderle argues Heemstra announced a change to a substantive rule of
constitutional law and, therefore, must be applied retroactively to his conviction.
We reject this argument. The Iowa Supreme Court has considered
Montgomery’s holding on Heemstra and found it inapplicable, as “Heemstra did
not create a new substantive rule of constitutional dimension.” Nguyen v. State,
878 N.W.2d 744, 753 n.4 (Iowa 2016). Additionally, “[t]his court has already
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determined Welch neither requires retroactive application of Heemstra nor counts
as a new ‘ground of law’ for purposes of the PCR statute of limitations.”
Washburne v. State, No. 18-1627, 2020 WL 1310278, at *1 (Iowa Ct. App. Mar. 18,
2020) (citing cases). Enderle has not established a new ground of law for which
his untimely application should be excused.
Finally, even if Enderle’s untimely application were to be considered, his
arguments asserted in the instant PCR application were addressed in his initial
PCR application. Enderle, 2014 WL 956018, at *1–5 (affirming dismissal of
Enderle’s initial application as “the federal and state constitutional provisions cited
by Enderle do not mandate retroactive application of the substantive holding of
Heemstra”); see also Nguyen, 878 N.W.2d at 759 (holding Heemstra’s prospective
application “does not violate the due process, separation of powers, or equal
protection clauses of the Iowa Constitution or the Equal Protections Clause of the
United States Constitution”); Goosman, 764 N.W.2d at 545 (finding “the limitation
of retroactivity announced in Heemstra to cases on direct appeal where the issue
has been preserved did not violate federal due process” as the “change” in
substantive state law did not “clarify” existing law but overruled prior authoritative
precedent on the same substantive issue).
IV. Conclusion
We affirm the dismissal of Enderle’s second PCR application as Enderle
failed to assert a new ground of law that would excuse his untimely application.
AFFIRMED.
Chad Enderle v. State of Iowa
Combined Opinion