Summary
addressing Swanson's claim "that her trial counsel was ineffective in failing to meaningfully confront a State's witness," in which she claimed "counsel committed a breach by not cross-examining the arresting officer about his bias against Swanson by not affording Swanson a chance to testify about law enforcement bias"
Summary of this case from Swanson v. StateOpinion
22-1998
10-25-2023
HEATHER LORRAINE SWANSON, Applicant-Appellant, v. STATE OF IOWA, Respondent-Appellee.
Katherine N. Flickinger of Hastings & Gartin Law Group, LLP, Ames, for appellant. Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Louis S. Sloven, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee State.
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Boone County, Bethany Currie, Judge.
Heather Swanson appeals the district court's denial of her application for postconviction relief. AFFIRMED.
Katherine N. Flickinger of Hastings & Gartin Law Group, LLP, Ames, for appellant.
Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Louis S. Sloven, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee State.
Considered by Greer, P.J., and Schumacher and Ahlers, JJ.
SCHUMACHER, Judge.
Heather Swanson appeals the district court's denial of her application for postconviction relief (PCR) which asserted she received ineffective assistance of counsel in her criminal trial. Swanson argues her trial counsel was ineffective in failing to meaningfully confront a State's witness concerning the witness's bias against her and her family and in failing to address the same bias against her and her family in Swanson's testimony. We affirm.
I. Background Facts and Proceedings.
In February 2021, a jury convicted Swanson of theft in the third degree. Swanson filed a direct appeal and in affirming the conviction, this court summarized the facts:
Swanson was shopping at a retail store on April 19, 2020. John Smith, an employee working as a loss prevention associate, was alerted to Swanson's presence. He began surveilling Swanson as she shopped. He observed Swanson remove labels from clearance dairy items and place them on two items of meat. Swanson placed the labels on the meat while standing approximately halfway down an aisle where no other shoppers were present.
Upon finishing her shopping, Swanson began scanning her items at a self-checkout lane. A surveillance video introduced at trial showed Swanson as she scanned her items. Testimony at trial indicated that when an item was properly scanned, the item would show up on a display screen, the system would make an audible beep, and the scanning light would turn from green to red. Swanson denies knowledge of how the system worked, claiming she relied solely on the auditory signal to determine when an item was scanned. During checkout, Swanson failed to correctly scan several items, including a bag of chips, a pizza, and dog treats. She also scanned the clearance dairy tags she affixed to the meat rather than the proper bar codes. She rotated several other items in order to properly scan them.
After finishing at the checkout, Swanson went to customer service. Swanson claims she believed her total cost was below what she expected, so she went to customer service to ask what to do. She further claims the customer service employee told her she
should go home and call back if she determined she paid an incorrect amount.
Smith stopped Swanson just before she exited the store and informed her that they needed to discuss the items she failed to scan. After examining her receipt and shopping cart, Smith determined Swanson's total was about seventy dollars below what it should have been. As a result, Smith contacted the local police, who arrested Swanson. Swanson, who has significant health problems, claims she was scanning items quickly because she did not feel well and wanted to get home. She denied deliberately failing to scan items or placing different tags on multiple items.
Swanson was charged with theft in the third degree by trial information on May 28. She pled not guilty, and the case went to a jury trial on February 2, 2021. During trial, Smith, Swanson, a police officer, and Swanson's boyfriend testified. After the close of the State's evidence, Swanson moved for a judgment of acquittal, which was denied. She renewed the motion after the close of all evidence, which was also denied. Swanson was found guilty of third-degree theft, in violation of Iowa Code sections 714.1 (4) and 714.2(3) (2020) on February 3, 2021. The court sentenced Swanson to two years in prison, but suspended the sentence and placed Swanson on probation.State v. Swanson, No. 21-0694, 2022 WL 951106, at *1 (Iowa Ct. App. Mar. 30, 2022) (footnotes omitted).
Swanson filed a PCR application, claiming ineffective assistance of counsel. Following the hearing, the district court dismissed Swanson's application. Swanson now appeals.
Swanson's PCR trial was combined with a separate PCR proceeding, PCCR042230, so the transcript filed in the instant appeal is relevant to both proceedings. But PCCR042230 is pending before the Iowa Supreme Court as No. 22-1997 and is not a part of this appeal.
II. Standard of Review.
"Our review of postconviction-relief proceedings is typically for correction of errors at law. But when . . . reviewing an ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim, we do so de novo because such claims are constitutional in nature." Hernandez Ruiz v. State, 912 N.W.2d 435, 439 (Iowa 2018).
III. Analysis.
"To succeed on a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment as applied to the states under the Fourteenth Amendment, a claimant must establish by a preponderance of the evidence that (1) trial counsel failed to perform an essential duty and (2) this failure resulted in prejudice." Linn v. State, 929 N.W.2d 717, 730 (Iowa 2019). For the second prong, the claimant must establish Strickland prejudice by showing "there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different." Id. at 731 (quoting State v. Thorndike, 860 N.W.2d 316, 320 (Iowa 2015)).
Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 694 (1984).
Because the test for ineffective assistance of counsel is a two-pronged test, a defendant must show both prongs have been met. Dempsey v. State, 860 N.W.2d 860, 868 (Iowa 2015). If the defendant fails "to establish either of these elements, we need not address the remaining element." Id.
Swanson argues that her trial counsel was ineffective in failing to meaningfully confront a State's witness. Related to that claim, she alleges her counsel committed a breach by not cross-examining the arresting officer about his bias against Swanson. Secondly, she alleges her trial counsel was ineffective and committed a breach by not affording Swanson a chance to testify about law enforcement bias.
At the PCR trial, Swanson also alleged bias on the behalf of the Boone County Attorney, but she has abandoned this claim on appeal.
Swanson's application alleges bias by the Boone County Sheriff's Department. The officer involved in Swanson's arrest was a city police officer. We address Swanson's claim as one against law enforcement in general, given the district court's ruling also analyzed Swanson's claim in this manner.
We are able to resolve this appeal analyzing the prejudice prong. As noted, the evidence at Swanson's criminal trial consisted of four witnesses-the retail store's loss prevention associate, a police officer, Swanson, and Swanson's boyfriend. Swanson's claim of ineffective assistance of counsel focuses on her claim that law enforcement was biased against her and against her family, and that her counsel did not meaningfully cross-examine the police officer concerning such bias. She also claims her counsel was ineffective because, although Swanson testified in her defense, she was not questioned by her counsel about bias of law enforcement against both herself and her family.
First, we highlight that the officer's testimony at Swanson's criminal trial was fairly limited. In contrast, the State's primary witness, the retail store's loss prevention associate, provided the jury detailed testimony about his personal observations of Swanson, including that he personally observed her remove bar codes from dairy products and place them on packages of meat. And the State offered more evidence through a video that showed Swanson failing to scan items. Swanson does not address how cross-examination of the officer about bias or her own testimony about bias would have changed the outcome of her criminal proceeding.
We determine that the record contains overwhelming evidence of Swanson's guilt. And because the trial record contains overwhelming evidence of guilt, Swanson cannot establish Strickland prejudice. See Keys v. State, No. 19-0218, 2020 WL 1054311, at *2 (Iowa Ct. App. Mar. 4, 2020). We conclude there is no reasonable probability of a different result had counsel cross-examined the arresting officer about any bias against Swanson or her family, or questioned Swanson on direct examination about her beliefs of law enforcement bias against her or her family.
IV. Conclusion
We conclude that Swanson cannot demonstrate Strickland prejudice. Accordingly, we affirm.
AFFIRMED.