Duane Maynord Huffer v. State of Iowa

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
_______________

No. 24-1631
Filed April 15, 2026
_______________

Duane Maynord Huffer,
Applicant–Appellant,
v.
State of Iowa,
Respondent–Appellee.
_______________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Story County,
The Honorable Melissa Anderson-Seeber, Judge.
_______________

AFFIRMED
_______________

Jamie Hunter of Dickey, Campbell & Sahag Law Firm, PLC, Des Moines,
attorney for appellant.

Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Zachary Miller, Assistant Attorney
General, attorneys for appellee.
_______________

Considered without oral argument
by Chicchelly, P.J., and Buller and Langholz, JJ.
Opinion by Langholz, J.

1
LANGHOLZ, Judge.

After pleading guilty to first-degree harassment, Duane Huffer filed a
timely postconviction-relief (“PCR”) application challenging his conviction.
Among other claims, he alleged many instances of prosecutorial misconduct
and ineffective assistance of his counsel. Following a bench trial, the district
court found that Huffer failed to show that he was prejudiced by any of the
alleged instances of prosecutorial misconduct or that his defense counsel
breached any essential duty. So the court denied relief. Huffer now appeals.

On our review, we agree with the State that Iowa Code section 822.8
(2018) bars Huffer from raising his prosecutorial-misconduct claims in this
PCR action because he failed to raise them during the criminal proceedings
or in his direct appeal challenging the district court’s revocation of his
deferred judgment. And the State asserted the procedural bar to Huffer’s
claims in its answer to his PCR application. So we affirm the district court’s
denial of relief on this alternative ground and decline to reach the merits of
Huffer’s prosecutorial-misconduct claims.

As for his ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims, we find that Huffer
has not adequately argued or established constitutional prejudice in the
guilty-plea context. So these claims too must fail. We thus affirm the district
court’s denial of Huffer’s PCR application.

I. Background Facts and Proceedings

In early 2018, Huffer’s then-wife reported to an Ames police officer
that Huffer threatened to kill her and later put his hands around her neck
while she was sleeping. The officer filed a criminal complaint alleging Huffer
committed domestic-abuse assault impeding the flow of air or blood—an
aggravated misdemeanor. See Iowa Code § 708.2A(2)(d). And the district

2
court entered a criminal no-contact order naming the assault victim as the
protected party.

The day after Huffer’s arrest, the Story County Attorney requested
that a special prosecutor be appointed due to “a conflict of interest with the
Story County Attorney’s Office.”1 Granting that request, the court appointed
an assistant Polk County Attorney as the special prosecutor in Huffer’s case.
After the special prosecutor “reviewed the full police report,” the State
moved to amend the charges to one count of domestic-abuse assault—a
simple misdemeanor—and one count of harassment in the first degree—an
aggravated misdemeanor. See Iowa Code §§ 708.2A(2)(a), 708.7(1)(b),
708.7(2)(a)(1). The court granted the motion, and the State filed an amended
complaint and trial information charging Huffer with those offenses.

Huffer reached an agreement with the State to plead guilty to the first-
degree harassment count. In exchange for his guilty plea, the State agreed to
recommend a deferred judgment with eighteen months of probation and to
dismiss the domestic-abuse count. As terms of probation, Huffer would
obtain a mental-health evaluation and complete all recommended treatment.
The State would also request to extend the no-contact order.

The court accepted Huffer’s guilty plea. And consistent with the
State’s recommendation under the plea agreement and on the record at
sentencing, the court deferred judgment, placed Huffer on probation for
eighteen months, extended the no-contact order for five years, and dismissed
the domestic-abuse count. But the court warned Huffer: “[I]f you cannot

1
The Story County Attorney did not specify the conflict of interest. But Huffer
testified at the PCR trial that the victim and the Story County Attorney “were law school
classmates and studied together.”

3
successfully complete that probation, you can lose your deferred judgment
and you would be looking at two years in prison.”

Less than a month after Huffer’s sentencing, an assistant county
attorney from the Story County Attorney’s Office filed an application to
revoke his probation for violating the no-contact order, and the court issued
an arrest warrant. Ten days after Huffer’s arrest, the same assistant county
attorney moved to withdraw the application, explaining that “[a]fter further
review the State has determined the facts do not support revocation of the
defendant’s probation.” The court dismissed those revocation proceedings.

Three months later, a different assistant county attorney—again from
the Story County Attorney’s Office—filed a second application to revoke
Huffer’s probation for violating the no-contact order, and Huffer was
arrested again. The special prosecutor then appeared on behalf of the State
during the revocation proceedings. At the revocation hearing, Huffer
admitted to violating the no-contact order twice—by sending a text message
to the victim and by entering a vehicle that was parked outside of her
apartment when she was not home.

The district court found that Huffer “violated the terms and
conditions of probation by having violated the no contact order.” Further, the
court found that “the deferred judgment probation did not rehabilitate
[Huffer] and it did not protect the community.” Thus, the court revoked
Huffer’s deferred judgment and adjudged him guilty of first-degree
harassment. The court imposed a two-year suspended sentence with credit
for time served, returned Huffer to probation, and ordered him to reside at a
residential facility until he “received maximum benefits” as a condition of
his probation.

4
Our court affirmed the district court’s revocation of Huffer’s deferred
judgment and its sentencing decision on direct appeal. State v. Huffer,
No. 18-2149, 2020 WL 109593, at *1–2 (Iowa Ct. App. Jan. 9, 2020)
(per curiam). Huffer was discharged from probation in late 2020.

Huffer filed a timely PCR application. He alleged, among many other
claims, that the Story County Attorney’s Office committed prosecutorial
misconduct by initiating the probation revocation proceedings while it had a
conflict of interest; by instructing the reporting police officer to lie when he
filed the criminal complaint; and by breaching the plea agreement when it
filed the first revocation application based on alleged conduct that occurred
before sentencing. He also claimed that his trial counsel was ineffective for
“not investigating things, lack of access to information, [and] failure to make
appropriate motions and objections.” His later amended application—filed
with the assistance of an attorney—added more specific claims as to how his
trial counsel failed to investigate and a claim that his appellate counsel was
ineffective for failing to argue that his guilty plea should not have been
accepted because of those failures to investigate. In its answer, the State
asserted that Huffer’s PCR application was “procedurally defaulted and
barred” because he “failed to preserve the right to postconviction relief and
waived the right to challenge [his] plea by failing to file a motion in arrest of
judgment,” and he “failed to preserve [his] claims for postconviction relief.”

Huffer testified and submitted nearly two-thousand pages of exhibits
at the PCR trial in 2023. The district court kept the record open for the State
to submit an affidavit from Huffer’s criminal trial counsel, for Huffer to
submit a responsive affidavit, and for both parties to submit written closing
arguments.

5
The court then denied Huffer’s PCR application in a thorough written
ruling. The court found that Huffer failed to establish most of his claims of
prosecutorial misconduct but agreed “that it [was] improper conduct for a
member of the Story County Attorney’s Office to be involved . . . in seeking
a warrant for violation of a no contact order due to the office’s continued
conflict of interest.” But the court found that “Huffer fail[ed] to establish he
was prejudiced by the actions of the Story County Attorney’s Office for the
first allegation of a probation violation” and rejected that claim too. On the
ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim, the court found that Huffer failed to
show that his criminal trial counsel breached any essential duty.

Huffer now appeals.

II. Prosecutorial Misconduct

Huffer first renews his arguments that prosecutorial misconduct
deprived him of his constitutional right to due process. See State v. Coleman,
907 N.W.2d 124, 138 (Iowa 2018). But before we can reach the merits, the
State urges that we must reject Huffer’s prosecutorial-misconduct claims
because Iowa Code section 822.8 bars him from raising them for the first time
in this PCR action. We agree.2

2
Although the district court denied these claims on the merits, rather than based
on section 822.8, we may consider and affirm on this alternative ground because the State
asserted the ground in its answer to Huffer’s PCR application. Cf. DeVoss v. State,
648 N.W.2d 56, 63 (Iowa 2002) (clarifying that the section 822.8 procedural bar must be
raised by the State in the district court before it can be asserted on appeal and, after noting
that the State did not assert section 822.8 in its answer, refusing to consider the bar); see
also Taylor v. State, No. 99-1285, 2003 WL 21153451, at *3 (Iowa 2003) (applying DeVoss
to affirm based on the section 822.8 procedural bar even when not addressed by the
district court because the State raised the issue in its answer to the PCR application).

6
Section 822.8 is the issue-preservation provision for PCR actions. See
State v. Johnson, 784 N.W.2d 192, 196 (Iowa 2010). It provides:
All grounds for relief available to an applicant under this chapter must be
raised in the applicant’s original, supplemental or amended application.
Any ground finally adjudicated or not raised . . . in the proceeding that resulted
in the conviction or sentence, or in any other proceeding the applicant has taken
to secure relief, may not be the basis for a subsequent application, unless the
court finds a ground for relief asserted which for sufficient reason was not
asserted or was inadequately raised in the original, supplemental, or
amended application.

Iowa Code § 822.8 (emphasis added); see also id. § 822.2(2) (providing that
a PCR action “is not a substitute for nor does it affect any remedy, incident
to the proceedings in the trial court, or of direct review of the sentence or
conviction”). Ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims are excepted from this
preservation requirement. See Johnson, 784 N.W.2d at 196–98; Iowa Code
§ 814.7 (providing that ineffective-assistance claims “need not be raised on
direct appeal from the criminal proceedings in order to preserve the claim[s]
for postconviction relief purposes, and the claim[s] shall not be decided on
direct appeal from the criminal proceedings”).

Our supreme court has “long held postconviction relief is not a means
for relitigating claims that were or should have been properly presented on
direct appeal.” Osborn v. State, 573 N.W.2d 917, 921 (Iowa 1998). “Thus any
claim not properly raised on direct appeal may not be litigated in
postconviction unless there is a showing of sufficient reason or cause for not
properly raising it previously, and of actual prejudice resulting from the
alleged error.” Id. (cleaned up); see also Origer v. State, 495 N.W.2d 132, 138–
39 (Iowa Ct. App. 1992) (holding that prosecutorial-misconduct claim not
raised on direct appeal was not preserved for postconviction relief ). “In
order for us to even consider the issue of prosecutorial misconduct” on PCR

7
appeal, “we must find the requisite cause and prejudice.” Gordon v. State,
480 N.W.2d 265, 267 (Iowa Ct. App. 1991).

Trouble is, Huffer raised his prosecutorial-misconduct claims for the
first time in his PCR application. He did not raise these claims in the district
court during the underlying criminal proceedings. Nor did he raise them on
direct appeal in challenging the revocation of his deferred judgment. See
Huffer, 2020 WL 109593, at *1–2. And Huffer does not present any argument
even trying to show that he had a sufficient reason or cause for failing to raise
his prosecutorial-misconduct claims in his direct appeal.3

We thus hold that Huffer cannot raise his prosecutorial-misconduct
claims for the first time in this PCR action. See Johnson v. State, No. 18-0983,
2020 WL 1049779, at *6 (Iowa Ct. App. Mar. 4, 2020) (declining to reach
merits of PCR applicant’s prosecutorial-misconduct claims where applicant
“addressed only the merits” without any “argument for sufficient cause”
and “no sufficient cause or prejudice” was shown). So we affirm the district
court’s denial of relief on this alternative ground and decline to reach the
merits of Huffer’s prosecutorial-misconduct claims.

III. Ineffective Assistance of Counsel

Huffer also renews his ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim on
appeal. We review a PCR applicant’s ineffective-assistance-of-counsel

3
Huffer also briefly mentions his trial counsel’s failure to challenge his probation
revocations based on the alleged misconduct in the ineffective-assistance-of-counsel
section of his brief without any further argument or citation to authority. But his PCR
application and amended application raised his allegations of prosecutorial misconduct as
freestanding claims for relief—not as part of his ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim.
So any such claim is neither properly presented nor preserved for our review on appeal.
See Iowa R. App. P. 6.903(2)(a)(8)(3); Meier v. Senecaut, 641 N.W.2d 532, 537 (Iowa 2002).

8
claim—like other constitutional claims—de novo. Trane v. State,
16 N.W.3d 683, 692 (Iowa 2025). While the district court’s factual findings
do not bind us, we give them weight, especially when based on witness
credibility. Id.

Criminal defendants are constitutionally entitled to the effective
assistance of counsel. See U.S. Const. amend. VI; Iowa Const. art. I, § 10;
Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 686 (1984). “A defendant proves
ineffective assistance of counsel when he establishes: (1) his trial counsel
failed to perform an essential duty, and (2) this failure resulted in prejudice.”
Trane, 16 N.W.3d at 692 (cleaned up). For the first element, the defendant
must prove “counsel performed below the standard demanded of a
reasonably competent attorney.” Id. (cleaned up). But “[w]e presume counsel
performed competently unless the claimant proves otherwise by a
preponderance of the evidence.” Id. (cleaned up).

And to establish constitutional prejudice, “typically, the defendant
must show that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s
unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been
different.” Smith v. State, 7 N.W.3d 723, 727 (Iowa 2024) (cleaned up). A
“defendant claiming ineffective assistance of counsel with respect to a guilty
plea must prove that, but for counsel’s breach, there is a reasonable
probability he or she would have insisted on going to trial.” State v. Tate,
710 N.W.2d 237, 240 (Iowa 2006). “If the claim lacks prejudice, it can be
decided on that ground alone without deciding whether the attorney
performed deficiently.” Ledezma v. State, 626 N.W.2d 134, 142 (Iowa 2001).

9
Huffer’s ineffective-assistance claim focuses on his trial counsel’s
alleged failure to investigate. 4 He contends that he informed his trial counsel
about “text messages on his cell phone that would have contradicted [the
victim’s] claim that Huffer had been threatening her repeatedly.” He claims
that he “also wanted to obtain evidence regarding a flogger that [the victim]
regularly used to assault him, which would refute her claims that he was the
aggressor in the relationship.” He further claims that his trial counsel “did
not obtain critical information regarding his mental health, including his
medications and his thyroid disorder.” And he alleges that his trial counsel
“neglected to obtain [the victim’s] records, which would indicate that she
was taking testosterone supplements that caused her . . . to become
aggressive and angry.”

The district court concluded that Huffer failed to show that his trial
counsel breached any essential duty based on these allegations. But even
assuming that conclusion was in error, this case can be decided on the
prejudice element alone. See Ledezma, 626 N.W.2d at 142. Huffer testified
that “[i]f all things would have been investigated, [he] probably would have
gone to trial” instead of pleading guilty. But to show prejudice, “a claimant
must proffer more than his or her own subjective, self-serving testimony.”
Dempsey v. State, 860 N.W.2d 860, 869 (Iowa 2015); see also State v. Myers,
653 N.W.2d 574, 579 (Iowa 2002) (holding that a “conclusory claim of
prejudice, that [the defendant] was ready to insist on going to trial, is not a
sufficient assertion of prejudice” (cleaned up)).

4
Huffer also alleged ineffective assistance of appellate counsel in his amended
PCR application. But the district court found that he failed to establish that claim. And
Huffer does not challenge that finding on appeal.

10
Huffer contends that “this was a close case,” and if his trial counsel
had properly investigated, he “would have been able to question [the
victim’s] credibility, which was the only evidence against him.” But the
victim testified at her deposition—conducted by Huffer’s trial counsel before
he pleaded guilty—that Huffer threatened to kill her. And in his written guilty
plea, Huffer admitted that he “had personal contact with” the victim, that he
“did so with the intent to alarm” her, and that he “threatened to commit the
forcible felony of murder.” That is all the State would need to prove to
convict Huffer of first-degree harassment. See Iowa Code § 708.7(1)(b),
(2)(a)(1). What’s more, Huffer does not argue there is a reasonable
probability that he would have rejected the State’s plea offer—which
included recommending a deferred judgment and dismissing the domestic-
abuse charge—had his counsel conducted further investigation.

Thus, we find that Huffer has not adequately argued or established
constitutional prejudice. See Smith, 7 N.W.3d at 726–27 (“It is not enough for
the defendant to show that the errors had only some effect on the outcome of
the proceeding.” (cleaned up)); Tate, 710 N.W.2d at 240 (defining prejudice
in the guilty-plea context). So Huffer’s ineffective-assistance claim must fail.

AFFIRMED.

11