IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA No. 18-0134 Filed July 24, 2019 JESSIE JAMES JONES, Applicant-Appellant, vs. STATE OF IOWA, Respondent-Appellee. ________________________________________________________________ Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Clinton County, Tom Reidel, Judge. The applicant appeals the denial of his application for postconviction relief, following his conviction for sexual abuse in the second degree. AFFIRMED. Stuart G. Hoover of Blair & Fitzsimmons, P.C., Dubuque, for appellant. Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Sheryl Soich, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee State. Considered by Potterfield, P.J., and Tabor and Bower, JJ. 2 POTTERFIELD, Presiding Judge. Jessie Jones appeals the denial of his application for postconviction relief (PCR) following his conviction of sexual abuse in the second degree. Jones claims the PCR court abused its discretion in denying his application for the appointment of an expert to testify in his PCR hearing regarding the standard of professional conduct for attorneys. Additionally, Jones argues his PCR application should have been granted because his trial counsel breached an essential duty by (1) failing to call an expert to emphasize the lack of rape-kit evidence; (2) failing to contest evidence of Jones’s DNA found on the complaining witness’s “wrong” underwear or explain the limitations to DNA evidence; (3) failing to challenge whether the jury panel was made up of a fair cross section of the community; (4) wrongly advising Jones regarding possible impeachment based on his prior convictions and, as a result, wrongly advising Jones not to testify in his own defense. He asks that we consider the cumulative effect of trial counsel’s errors. I. Background Facts and Proceedings. In fall 2010, Jones was charged with three counts of sexual abuse in the second degree. In each of the counts, it was alleged Jones perpetrated sex acts on nine-year-old A.E.-S. A jury trial took place over two days in March 2011. At the trial, A.E.-S, who was a child in the home Jones had been living in during the relevant time periods, testified Jones pulled her down onto the air mattress Jones was using as a bed in the family living room, pulled down her pants and underwear, and “sticked his nasty part in her butt.” A.E.-S estimated Jones did so for four or five 3 minutes. Afterward, A.E.-S grabbed a phone and hid under her bed. A.E.-S. called her mother but was too hysterical for her mother to understand anything other than that A.E.-S was saying something about Jones. A.E.-S.’s mother called another one of her children—A.E.-S.’s older sister—and asked her to go home to check on A.E.-S. When the older sister, the older sister’s friend, and the adult who had been driving them arrived at the home, they found A.E.-S. under the bed crying. She told them, “[Jones] raped me again.” Once A.E.-S.’s stepfather arrived home, he checked A.E.-S. for any serious external injuries before ultimately deciding to drive her to the emergency room himself rather than calling for an ambulance. A.E.-S. was seen by a doctor and nurse at the hospital; ...
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