IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA No. 19-0550 Filed February 5, 2020 STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff-Appellee, vs. FREDDIE HELAI, Defendant-Appellant. ________________________________________________________________ Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Black Hawk County, George L. Stigler, Judge. Freddie Helai appeals his conviction of lascivious acts with a child and the sentence imposed. CONVICTION AFFIRMED; SENTENCE VACATED AND REMANDED FOR RESENTENCING. John J. Wolfe of Wolfe Law Office, Clinton, for appellant. Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Genevieve Reinkoester, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee. Considered by Vaitheswaran, P.J., and Mullins and Ahlers, JJ. 2 MULLINS, Judge. Freddie Helai appeals his conviction, following a guilty plea, of lascivious acts with a child and the sentence imposed. He argues his plea was entered unknowingly and involuntarily because he was misadvised of the potential immigration consequences1 of his plea and his counsel rendered ineffective assistance in failing to ensure he was accurately advised and by failing to file a motion in arrest of judgment to challenge his plea based on the alleged deficiencies.2 He also argues the court relied on improper considerations in imposing sentence. As Helai acknowledges, by failing to file a motion in arrest of judgment to challenge the plea, he did not preserve error on his challenge. See Iowa R. App. P. 2.24(3)(a) (“A defendant’s failure to challenge the adequacy of a guilty plea proceeding by motion in arrest of judgment shall preclude the defendant’s right to assert such challenge on appeal.”). However, Helai also claims his attorney was ineffective in allowing the alleged plea-related errors and for failing to file a motion in arrest of judgment to challenge the plea. “[I]f the guilty plea resulted from ineffective assistance of counsel, the defendant can challenge the plea under the 1 While the court advised Helai at the plea hearing he would not suffer immigration consequences because he was from an “American protectorate,” upon the record made in the district court, it is unclear whether Helai is a United States citizen. 2 As the State points out, recent legislation, effective July 1, 2019, limits our ability to consider appeals of convictions when a defendant has pled guilty and forecloses our ability to consider ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims on direct appeal. See 2019 Iowa Acts ch. 140, §§ 28(a)(3), 31 (codified at Iowa Code §§ 814.6(1)(a)(3), .7 (2019)). However, the State filed its brief before our supreme court decided whether the legislation is retroactive. The court recently ruled the new provisions do “not apply to a direct appeal from a judgment and sentence entered before July 1, 2019.” State v. Macke, 933 N.W.2d 226, 228 (Iowa 2019). 3 rubric of ineffective assistance of counsel.” State v. Weitzel, 905 N.W.2d 397, 401 (Iowa 2017); accord State v. Fountain, 786 N.W.2d 260, 263 (Iowa 2010) (“Ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims are an exception to the traditional error- preservation rules.”). We review claims of ineffective assistance of counsel de novo and will only exercise appellate review if the record is adequate to determine the claim. State v. Kuhse, ___ N.W.2d ___, ___, ...
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