United States v. Gustavo Villa-Maldonado

United States Court of Appeals
FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT
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No. 10-3182
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Nicholas Leon Hanegan, *
*
Appellant, *
* Appeal from the United States
v. * District Court for the
* Southern District of Iowa.
Thomas J. Miller, *
*
Appellee. *
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Submitted: September 20, 2011
Filed: December 7, 2011
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Before WOLLMAN, BYE, and SHEPHERD, Circuit Judges.
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WOLLMAN, Circuit Judge.
Nicholas Hanegan was convicted of kidnapping in the first degree, attempted
murder, and willful injury, in violation of Iowa law. Following the denial of his
direct appeal and the exhaustion of his state postconviction remedies, Hanegan
petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus, arguing that the Iowa Court of Appeals
unreasonably applied federal law and made an unreasonable determination of the
facts in concluding that his trial attorney was not ineffective. See 28 U.S.C.
§ 2254(d). The district court denied Hanegan’s petition. We affirm.1
The Honorable Ronald E. Longstaff, United States District Judge for the1
Southern District of Iowa.

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I.
After Hanegan and Carrie Fleenor had been in a sexual relationship for about
two weeks, Hanegan became suspicious of Fleenor. Both used methamphetamine,
smoking the drug and ingesting it intravenously. Hanegan had told acquaintances
that he believed that Fleenor had reported him to the police as a drug user and dealer
and that he wanted to kill her.
On May 5, 2000, Hanegan spent the day injecting and smoking
methamphetamine. According to Fleenor, who also used methamphetamine that day,
Hanegan called her and asked for a ride to his mother’s apartment. Fleenor
reluctantly agreed. At some point in the evening, Hanegan and James Rainer met
Fleenor in the parking lot of her apartment complex. They went to Fleenor’s car,
where Hanegan entered the driver’s seat, Rainer took the passenger’s seat, and
Fleenor sat in the back seat. Fleenor testified that she did not remember how she
entered the car. Hanegan testified that she did so voluntarily.
Hanegan exited the parking lot and later drove the car past the street that would
have taken them to his mother’s apartment. Fleenor asked why they were not going
to his mother’s apartment, to which Hanegan responded that Fleenor was going to die.
Thereafter, Hanegan stopped at a friend’s house. Fleenor testified that Hanegan told
Rainer to keep her in the car while he went into the house. Fleenor testified that she
was held captive in the car, yelled for help, and tried to kick out one of the car
windows. She further testified that when Hanegan returned and learned what she had
done, he slapped her for attempting to escape. Hanegan disputed Fleenor’s
recollection, testifying that Fleenor was free to leave and that he did not threaten her.
According to Hanegan, he had stopped at the friend’s house to buy methamphetamine
and that Fleenor had given him money to do so.
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Hanegan drove to a pet cemetery and parked the car. Fleenor testified that
Hanegan pulled her out of the car and beat her head with a liquor bottle before
shoving her into the car and attempting to light it on fire. Fleenor testified that she
lost consciousness at that point, due to the effects of the trauma and drugs.
The cemetery’s caretaker noticed a car in the field adjacent to the cemetery the
morning of May 6, 2000. He approached the car, but did not see anyone inside. As
he was returning to his duties, he heard a faint voice say, “Help me.” App. 92. He
then found Fleenor lying directly in front of the left rear wheel, with only her head
and shoulders exposed and the rest of her body pinned beneath the car. The caretaker
described Fleenor’s face as “[v]irtually every shade of purple and red and black and
blue, and eyes were swollen.” App. 94.
Rescue personnel lifted the car off Fleenor’s body by means of large air bags.
Fleenor was then transported to the hospital, where Dr. Guy Stines, a trauma surgeon,
treated her. She was released from the hospital six or seven days later.
Hanegan was charged with kidnapping in the first degree, attempted murder,
and willful injury. See Iowa Code §§ 710.1(3) and (4) and 710.2 (kidnapping);
§ 707.11 (attempted murder); § 708.4 (willful injury). On the kidnapping charge,
which carried a mandatory life sentence, the jury was instructed that the state had to
prove the following elements: (1) Hanegan removed Fleenor from a place, (2) with
the specific intent to inflict serious injury upon her, (3) that he did not have Fleenor’s
consent or authority to do so, and (4) as a result she was intentionally subjected to
torture or sustained a serious injury. App. 394. The state was required to prove that
Fleenor suffered serious injury for both the kidnapping and willful injury counts.
Serious injury was defined as “a disabling mental illness or bodily injury which
creates a substantial risk of death or which causes serious permanent disfigurement
or protracted loss or impairment of the function of any bodily member or organ.”
App. 395 (jury instruction); see Iowa Code § 702.18(1).
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In addition to the testimony recounted above, Fleenor, Hanegan, and several
other witnesses testified at trial regarding the events of May 5 and 6, 2000. Hanegan
testified that he and Fleenor argued at the pet cemetery and that he hit her head with
a whiskey bottle. According to Hanegan, the bottle broke when he hit Fleenor a
second time, whereupon he fled the scene. He denied running Fleenor over with the
car. After leaving the pet cemetery, Hanegan called friends and asked them for a ride.
A friend retrieved Hanegan and Rainer from a road near the pet cemetery. One
witness testified that Hanegan told him that “he decapitated [Fleenor] and he had
beaten her,” that he “drove over her a couple times . . . left her for dead.” App. 104.
Another testified that Hanegan said that “he thinks he killed her and ran the car over
her, and she screamed and screamed.” App. 232.
Fleenor testified that she suffered several injuries, including a lacerated eyelid,
several burns, six fractured ribs, an injury to her spine, and a cut on the top of her
head. She explained that the injuries caused permanent or ongoing problems: her
arm was scarred from the burn, the spinal injury caused mild scoliosis, and no hair
would grow on the one-inch scar on her head. Dr. Stines testified that Fleenor “had
sustained multiple injuries: mostly facial bruising and lacerations, a burn of the left
upper arm, and bruising and cuts of the knees and left thigh.” App. 150-51. A CAT
scan revealed that several of Fleenor’s ribs were fractured. After the prosecutor
showed him a recent photograph of the burn mark on Fleenor’s arm, Dr. Stines
testified that Fleenor’s scar was one that was typically left by a burn and that it was
permanent. Fleenor also testified that she used methamphetamine for eight years and
that in May 2000, she was injecting methamphetamine on a daily basis. She admitted
that methamphetamine affected her thinking ability and made her aggressive. Despite
this testimony, defense counsel did not introduce evidence that Fleenor might be
suffering from methamphetamine-induced psychosis.
With respect to the kidnapping charge, Hanegan’s trial attorney focused the
defense on the first and third elements: whether Hanegan removed Fleenor from a
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place without her consent. The defense’s theory of the case was that Fleenor went
willingly to the pet cemetery, where she, Hanegan, and Rainer planned to drink
alcohol and inject methamphetamine, and that the evidence was insufficient to prove
kidnapping. Defense counsel later explained that he decided to forego challenging
the serious injury element because he believed that Fleenor’s injuries—including her
broken ribs—met the statute’s definition and because he sought to limit the jury’s
exposure to the photographs of her injuries.
The jury convicted Hanegan on all counts, and he was sentenced to life
imprisonment on the kidnapping conviction. He received concurrent, lesser terms of
imprisonment on the remaining charges. He appealed his kidnapping conviction,
arguing, among other things, that the evidence was insufficient to allow a jury to find
that he removed Fleenor without her consent. The Iowa Court of Appeals affirmed.
During the postconviction proceedings, Hanegan sought to establish that his
trial counsel was ineffective for failing to challenge the serious injury element of the
kidnapping charge. Fleenor’s trial testimony regarding her injuries was somewhat
inconsistent with her medical records. In a postconviction deposition, Dr. Stines
testified that the wound to Fleenor’s arm was likely an abrasion—not a burn—but
regardless the treatment would have been the same and the injury would leave a
permanent scar. He also testified that the chest X-ray revealed that she had fractured
three ribs—not six—and that those fractures “are consistent with being run over by
a car.” App. 451. Fleenor’s medical records did not reveal an injury to the spine, and
Dr. Stines testified that he “ha[d] not seen instances of scolioisis resulting from this
type of trauma.” App. 440. Hanegan also argued that the injury to Fleenor’s scalp
did not occur on May 5 or 6, 2000, because it was not listed on her medical records
and stitches were not required.
The trial court denied Hanegan’s application for postconviction relief. The
Iowa Court of Appeals affirmed, concluding that even if “questionable evidence” was
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introduced at trial, Hanegan suffered no prejudice from it. Hanegan v. State, No. 05-
1756, 2007 WL 1484476, at *5 (Iowa Ct. App. May 23, 2007) (unpublished), see 735
N.W.2d 204 (table disposition).
Upon our de novo review we find overwhelming evidence that Fleenor
suffered a “serious injury.” The victim was run over by a car. Even
Hanegan does not contest the existence of at least three rib fractures,
some sort of deep wound to Fleenor’s arm, and a possible puncture to
the lungs. A jury could have found any of these injuries to have
constituted “serious injury” under both the willful injury and kidnapping
charges.
Id. Accordingly, the court of appeals held that Hanegan could not have suffered
prejudice from the introduction of the contested evidence.
After further review was denied by the state supreme court, Hanegan filed a
petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, claiming that the Iowa
Court of Appeals unreasonably applied federal law and made an unreasonable
determination of the facts in concluding that his trial attorney was not ineffective.
The district court denied Hanegan’s petition and granted his motion for a certificate
of appealability. On appeal, Hanegan argues that his counsel’s failure to understand
the extent of Fleenor’s injuries, as well as the effects of long-term, intravenous
methamphetamine use, led to counsel’s failure to object to or impeach the false
testimony and counsel’s failure to introduce evidence that Fleenor suffered from
methamphetamine-induced psychosis. Hanegan contends that trial counsel’s failure
to challenge the serious injury element was not a strategic decision, but rather was
based on counsel’s erroneous belief that broken ribs satisfied the element of serious
injury. Finally, he argues that counsel was deficient in failing to challenge whether
Hanegan drove the car over Fleenor’s body.
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II.
In reviewing a district court’s denial of habeas relief, we review its findings of
fact for clear error and its conclusions of law de novo. Flowers v. Norris, 585 F.3d
413, 416 (8th Cir. 2009). Like the district court, we review the underlying decision
of the Iowa Court of Appeals under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, as amended by the
Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA). Flowers, 585 F.3d
at 416.
AEDPA limits the scope of our review in a habeas proceeding. If the issues
raised in the petition were adjudicated on the merits in the state court proceeding, the
petition must be denied, unless the state court disposition “resulted in a decision that
was contrary to, or involved an unreasonable application of, clearly established
Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States” or “resulted
in a decision that was based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of
the evidence presented in the State court proceeding.” § 2254(d). A state court’s
findings are entitled to a presumption of correctness, and the petitioner has the burden
of rebutting the presumption by clear and convincing evidence. § 2254(e)(1).
The Iowa Court of Appeals rejected Hanegan’s ineffective assistance of
counsel claim on the merits. The state appellate court held that his trial counsel was
not ineffective under the standard set forth in Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668
(1984). To prevail on his ineffective assistance of counsel claim, Hanegan was
required to show that counsel’s performance was deficient and that prejudice resulted.
Id. at 687.
On habeas review, “[t]he pivotal question is whether the state court’s
application of the Strickland standard was unreasonable.” Harrington v. Richter, 131
S. Ct. 770, 785 (2011); see § 2254(d)(1). Under AEDPA, “an unreasonable
application of federal law is different from an incorrect application of federal law.”
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Richter, 131 S. Ct. at 785 (quoting Williams v. Taylor, 529 U.S. 362, 410 (2000)).
“A state court’s determination that a claim lacks merit precludes federal habeas relief
so long as ‘fairminded jurists could disagree’ on the correctness of the state court’s
decision.’” Id. at 786 (quoting Yarborough v. Alvarado, 541 U.S. 652, 664 (2004)).
Accordingly, when § 2254(d) applies, “[t]he question is whether there is any
reasonable argument that counsel satisfied Strickland’s deferential standard.” Id. at
788.
The Iowa Court of Appeals did not address whether counsel’s performance was
deficient under Strickland, but rather found that Hanegan had suffered no prejudice
from his counsel’s failure to correct Fleenor’s and Dr. Stines’s incorrect testimony.2
“In assessing prejudice under Strickland, the question is not whether a court can be
certain counsel’s performance had no effect on the outcome or whether it is possible
a reasonable doubt might have been established if counsel acted differently.” Richter,
131 S. Ct. at 791-92 (citing Wong v. Belmontes, 130 S. Ct. 383, 390 (2009) (per
curiam); Strickland, 466 U.S. at 693). Instead, we must determine whether it is
“reasonably likely” the result would have been different. Strickland, 466 U.S. at 696.
“The likelihood of a different result must be substantial, not just conceivable.”
Richter, 131 S. Ct. at 792 (citing Strickland, 466 U.S. at 693).
It was not unreasonable for the Iowa Court of Appeals to conclude that
Hanegan’s evidence of prejudice fell short of meeting this standard. The evidence
presented in the state postconviction proceedings established only a possibility that
Fleenor suffered from a psychosis or that she might have suffered injuries in events
not related to the night of May 5, 2000. Although Hanegan established that Fleenor
exaggerated some injuries—the number of broken ribs, the spinal injury, and the
At trial, Dr. Stines testified that Fleenor’s wound was a burn. In Fleenor’s2
medical records, he noted that it was a contusion. During the postconviction
proceedings, he testified that it was likely an abrasion.
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scoliosis—the state court of appeals found that the undisputed injuries constituted
serious injury and that Hanegan thus could not have suffered any prejudice from the
introduction of the disputed evidence. The court listed the following injuries as3
examples of serious injury: Fleenor fractured three ribs, she suffered “some sort of
deep wound to [her] arm, and a possible puncture to the lung.” Hanegan, 2007 WL
1484476, at *5. Fleenor’s medical records and Dr. Stines’s testimony support the fact
that Fleenor suffered those injuries, and Hanegan has failed to set forth clear and
convincing evidence that she did not. See § 2254(e)(1) (standard for rebutting
presumption of correctness).
Whether those injuries constituted serious injury for purposes of Hanegan’s
kidnapping and willful injury convictions is a question of Iowa law, not federal law.
We note that under Iowa law that “[s]carring may in some circumstances rise to the
level of serious permanent disfigurement.” State v. Hanes, 790 N.W.2d 545, 554
(Iowa 2010); see State v. Phams, 342 N.W.2d 792, 796 (Iowa 1983) (“We have
recognized that the statutory definition of serious injury includes those injuries which
leave the victim ‘permanently scarred or twisted . . . , [in contrast to] a black eye, a
bloody nose, and even a simple broken arm or leg.’”) (quoting 4 J. Yeager & R.
Carlson, Iowa Practice and Procedure § 45 (1979)). Accordingly, the evidence that
Fleenor suffered a contusion, burn, or abrasion to her arm that left a permanent scar
supports the Iowa Court of Appeals’s determination that Fleenor suffered a serious
injury.
Iowa Code section 702.18(1) defines serious injury as a disabling mental3
illness, or a bodily injury that creates a substantial risk of death, causes serious
permanent disfigurement, or causes protracted loss or impairment of the function of
any bodily member or organ. For children under the age of four, the statute defines
serious injury to include “rib fractures.” Iowa Code § 702.18(2). At oral argument,
the state conceded that fractured ribs in adults are not serious injury per se. To the
extent that Hanegan’s trial attorney believed that they were, he apparently
misunderstood the law.
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Finally, Hanegan’s contention that the court of appeals erred in finding that
Fleenor had been run over by a car is meritless in light of Hanegan’s admission to his
acquaintances that he had run over Fleenor with the car and the fact that Fleenor’s
body was found pinned beneath the vehicle.
Conclusion
Even assuming that Hanegan’s counsel’s performance was deficient for failing
to challenge the evidence of Fleenor’s injury and for failing to introduce evidence that
she might have been psychotic, the district court correctly denied Hanegan’s petition
for a writ of habeas corpus. Hanegan failed to establish (1) that the Iowa Court of
Appeals unreasonably applied Strickland when it rejected his claim that he suffered
prejudice from his trial counsel’s ineffective assistance or (2) that the Iowa Court of
Appeals unreasonably found that there was sufficient evidence to prove serious
injury. The order dismissing the petition is affirmed.
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