Jerrid Michael Winfrey v. State of Iowa

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA

No. 24-0573
Filed October 15, 2025

JERRID MICHAEL WINFREY,
Applicant-Appellant,

vs.

STATE OF IOWA,
Respondent-Appellee.
________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, Paul D. Scott, Judge.

An applicant for postconviction relief appeals the dismissal of his

application. AFFIRMED.

Ronald W. Kepford, Winterset, for appellant.

Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Zachary Miller, Assistant Attorney

General, for appellee.

Considered without oral argument by Schumacher, P.J., Sandy, J., and

Potterfield, S.J.*

*Senior judge assigned by order pursuant to Iowa Code section 602.9206

(2025).
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POTTERFIELD, Senior Judge.

In 2009, a jury found Jerrid Winfrey guilty of first-degree murder, attempted

murder, and willful injury causing serious injury. Winfrey’s convictions were upheld

on direct appeal, and this court later affirmed denial of his application for

postconviction relief. See State v. Winfrey, No. 10-0304, 2011 WL 5387263, at *5

(Iowa Ct. App. Nov. 9, 2011); Winfrey v. State, No. 22-0733, 2023 WL 5091846,

at *1 (Iowa Ct. App. Aug. 9, 2023). In October 2023, Winfrey filed a second

application for postconviction relief with allegations his first postconviction counsel

provided ineffective assistance. The State moved to dismiss the application as

untimely under Iowa Code § 822.3 (2023). Under that statute, postconviction relief

applications must be filed within three years from finality of the conviction. But this

second application was filed more than eleven years after Winfrey’s direct appeal

concluded, so the district court granted the motion and dismissed the application.

Winfrey appeals, arguing this court should use the “spirit and intent” of New

York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen to revisit and strike down the

statute of limitations in section 822.3 as unconstitutional and find Bruen constitutes

a new ground of law to reset the limitations period. See generally 597 U.S. 1

(2022). But “[w]e are not at liberty to overrule controlling supreme court

precedent,” State v. Beck, 854 N.W.2d 56, 64 (Iowa Ct. App. 2014), and our

supreme court has long since determined the statute of limitations in section 822.3

to be constitutional. Davis v. State, 443 N.W.2d 707, 710–11 (Iowa 1989); accord

McCoy v. State, No. 23-1286, 2025 WL 400745, at *4 (Iowa Ct. App. Feb. 5, 2025).

And Winfrey does not explain how Bruen provides a new ground of law applicable
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to this statute and his application beyond a general reevaluation of constitutional

rights preempting state law.

So we deny Winfrey’s constitutional challenge to the limitations period on

postconviction relief applications. As Winfrey filed this application far beyond the

limitations period, we affirm its dismissal.

AFFIRMED.