IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA No. 18-0235 Filed March 20, 2019 STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff-Appellee, vs. PRINCE MELLISH, Defendant-Appellant. ________________________________________________________________ Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Muscatine County, Gary P. Strausser, District Associate Judge. Prince Mellish appeals his conviction and sentence for theft in the third degree. AFFIRMED. Elizabeth Araguas of Nidey, Erdahl, Fisher, Pilkington & Meier PLC, Cedar Rapids, for appellant. Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, and Thomas J. Ogden, Assistant Attorney General, for appellee. Considered by Vogel, C.J., and Vaitheswaran and Potterfield, JJ. 2 VOGEL, Chief Judge. Prince Mellish appeals his conviction and sentence for theft in the third degree. See Iowa Code §§ 714.1, 714.2(3) (2017). He argues his counsel was ineffective for allowing him to sign a plea agreement that incorrectly states the law and for failing to correctly explain how his guilty plea would affect his immigration status. We find the plea agreement correctly states he has an obligation to understand his immigration status and no prejudice resulted from his counsel’s claimed failure to investigate the divisibility of his theft charge. Therefore, we affirm. On June 9, 2018, the district court accepted Mellish’s written guilty plea for theft in the third degree.1 The court sentenced him to ninety-two days in jail with all jail time suspended and placed him on probation. He appealed to us and obtained a motion for limited remand to establish a record on immigration issues. As part of the remand, he deposed his plea counsel. His plea counsel testified Mellish came to the United States as a refugee from Liberia and was in federal detention at the time he entered his plea. We review ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims de novo. State v. Maxwell, 743 N.W.2d 185, 195 (Iowa 2008). “In order to succeed on a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, a defendant must prove: (1) counsel failed to perform an essential duty; and (2) prejudice resulted.” Id. (citing Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687 (1984)). A breach of an essential duty occurs 1 In the same written plea agreement, Mellish also agreed to plead guilty to possession of a controlled substance from a separate case number. The possession charge is not part of this appeal. 3 “when the attorney fails to advise a client of the immigration consequences of a plea.” Diaz v. State, 896 N.W.2d 723, 728 (Iowa 2017). “If the defendant makes the requisite showing under this first prong, the defendant must then show that, but for counsel’s ineffective assistance, he or she ‘would not have pleaded guilty and would have insisted on going to trial.’” Id. (quoting Hill v. Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52, 59 (1985)). To establish prejudice, “the defendant must only show the ‘decision to reject the plea bargain would have been rational under the circumstances.’” Id. at 729 (quoting Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U.S. 356, 372 (2010)). First, Mellish argues his counsel was ineffective for allowing him to sign the written guilty plea. Specifically, he argues the following passage misstates the law: C. ...
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