IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA No. 20-1421 Filed March 2, 2022 MOHAMED HASSAN ALI, Applicant-Appellant, vs. STATE OF IOWA, Respondent-Appellee. ________________________________________________________________ Appeal from the Iowa District Court for O’Brien County, Charles Borth, Judge. Mohamed Hassan Ali appeals the summary disposition of his application for postconviction relief. AFFIRMED. Martha J. Lucey, State Appellate Defender, and Mary K. Conroy, Assistant Appellate Defender, for appellant. Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Thomas E. Bakke, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee State. Considered by Bower, C.J., and Greer and Badding, JJ. 2 BADDING, Judge. To avoid being deported to Somalia, Mohamed Hassan Ali filed an application for postconviction relief seeking to set aside a March 2003 conviction for possession of a controlled substance, a serious misdemeanor. See Iowa Code § 124.401(5) (2002). Ali claims his trial counsel failed to inform him about the immigration consequences of pleading guilty to that offense. The district court summarily disposed of Ali’s application as time-barred under Iowa Code section 822.3 (2020). We affirm. I. Background Facts and Proceedings On March 17, 2003, Ali filed a written guilty plea to possession of a controlled substance. On the same day Ali’s guilty plea was filed, the district court sentenced Ali to a fine and applicable surcharges. There is nothing in the record to indicate the court addressed Ali in open court1 to inform him of and determine his understanding that “a criminal conviction . . . may affect a defendant’s status under federal immigration laws,” as required by then Iowa Rule of Criminal Procedure 2.8(2)(b)(3), or that Ali approved waiver of such procedure, as authorized by rule 2.8(2)(b)(5) when the offense is a serious misdemeanor.2 Ali did not appeal. More than ten years later, on August 14, 2013, Ali filed a pro se “Petition to Reduce Sentence” in the criminal case. The pleading stated that Ali was “currently 1 The judgment entry noted Ali appeared “by his written guilty plea.” 2 Rule 2.8(2)(b) was amended in late 2004, after Ali entered his plea, to provide: “If the above procedures are waived . . . , the defendant shall sign a written document that includes a statement that conviction of a crime may result in the defendant’s deportation or other adverse immigration consequences if the defendant is not a United States citizen.” 3 [being] detained by the ICE Immigration Custom and Enforcement due to” his guilty plea to possession of a controlled substance. Believing he had been sentenced to “365 days suspended jail time,” Ali asked to “reduce the [s]entence only one day” to avoid deportation. In support of that request, Ali alleged that he “was not advised by counsel that he could face a problem with Immigration Services based on his plea[], or that his Immigration Status would be [j]eopardize[d].” The district court treated Ali’s filing as an application for postconviction relief, noted he had not been sentenced to jail, and dismissed the application as untimely under Iowa Code section 822.3 (2013). Once again, Ali did not appeal this …
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