Full Opinion

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA _______________ No. 25-1047 Filed August 19, 2026 _______________ Carl Lavin Ford, Applicant–Appellant, v. State of Iowa, Respondent–Appellee. _______________ Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, The Honorable David Nelmark, Judge. _______________ AFFIRMED _______________ John J. Bishop, Cedar Rapids, attorney for appellant. Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Adam Kenworthy, Assistant Attorney General, attorneys for appellee. _______________ Considered without oral argument by Ahlers, P.J., Langholz, J., and Bower, S.J. Opinion by Langholz, J. 1 LANGHOLZ, Judge. After a postconviction-relief trial, the district court rejected Carl Ford’s claim that he received ineffective assistance of counsel when his counsel assisted him with pleading guilty to operating while intoxicated without first fully investigating his case, including obtaining any videos of his traffic stop. The court found that Ford’s counsel “did not fail to perform any essential duties” and that “even if counsel had erred, there would have been no prejudice.” And Ford now appeals. On our de novo review, we agree with the district court that Ford failed to prove his ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claim. Even assuming that his counsel should have conducted further investigation, Ford has failed to show a reasonable probability that he would not have pleaded guilty but for the lack of investigation. To the contrary, the record shows that Ford felt that he had to accept the guilty plea to get out of jail quickly rather than waiting for trial to contest his case. And Ford did not submit the videos or any other evidence that he claims the investigation would have uncovered and caused him not to plead guilty. In short, even if Ford’s counsel should have done more, Ford did not show that it would have changed his decision to plead guilty. We thus affirm the court’s denial of Ford’s application for postconviction relief. I. According to the evidence at the postconviction-relief trial,1 early one March 2023 morning, Ford was stopped by an Iowa State Patrol trooper for driving with no taillights on Interstate 235 in Des Moines. During the stop, Ford submitted to a preliminary breath test that registered an alcohol 1 Ford and his court-appointed attorney in his criminal case both testified, and the court took judicial notice of the court file for that criminal case. 2 concentration level of 0.000%. But based on other signs of impairment during the trooper’s interactions with Ford, including Ford’s performance on field sobriety tests and his admission that he had used methamphetamine within the last day, Ford was eventually arrested for operating while intoxicated. And once back at the patrol office, Ford refused to submit to another chemical test requested by the trooper under the implied-consent statute that could have checked for other controlled substances in his body. After his arrest and throughout the time his criminal case was pending, Ford was held in custody at the Polk County Jail. He was initially appointed a public defender to represent him. But shortly after he pleaded not guilty and a status conference was set for April 13, 2023, the public defender was allowed to withdraw “due to lack of staff.” The next day—six days before the status conference—another attorney was appointed to represent Ford. The new counsel reviewed the file and then met with Ford at the courthouse the same day as the status conference for about fifteen minutes. Ford’s counsel had not obtained or reviewed any bodycam or dashcam videos from the stop. During the meeting, Ford told his counsel that he “need[ed] to get out of jail so [he could] get back to work.” He explained in his testimony that he was working to get money to pay for his attorney in a pending criminal case in North Dakota and that “the main reason” he needed to get out of jail was that pending case set for trial in mid-May—just a week after his trial in this case. They discussed Ford’s belief that he was innocent and the evidence against Ford. And Ford told his counsel that earlier the night that the trooper stopped him, he had been stopped by a Des Moines police officer for the same taillight infraction and had been given a warning. Ford thus suggested that they should obtain that first police report. Ford’s counsel also told him that the State was offering a plea deal that would only require him to serve another 3 four days in jail. And Ford ultimately accepted the plea agreement. In his testimony, he explained that he did so because it was “the only way [he] could get out of jail.” So the same day as the meeting with his counsel, he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to forty days in jail, with credit for thirty-six days already served. After completing the jail sentence four days later, he was released. Ford did not appeal. Instead, he brought this postconviction-relief proceeding asserting a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel and other claims not at issue on appeal. II. Criminal defendants are constitutionally entitled to the effective assistance of counsel. See U.S. Const. amend. VI; Iowa Const. art. I, § 10; Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 686 (1984). “A defendant proves ineffective assistance of counsel when he establishes: (1) his trial counsel failed to perform an essential duty, and (2) this failure resulted in prejudice.” Trane v. State, 16 N.W.3d 683, 692 (Iowa 2025) (cleaned up). For the first element, the claimant must prove “counsel performed below the standard demanded of a reasonably competent attorney.” Id. (cleaned up). And to establish constitutional prejudice, “typically, the defendant must show that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different.” Smith v. State, 7 N.W.3d 723, 727 (Iowa 2024) (cleaned up). For a postconviction-relief challenge to a conviction after a guilty plea, that means “the defendant must show that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel’s errors, he would not have pleaded guilty and would have insisted on going to trial.” Hill v. Lockhart, 474 U.S. 52, 59 (1985). “If the claim lacks prejudice, it can be 4 decided on that ground alone without deciding whether the attorney performed deficiently.” Ledezma v. State, 626 N.W.2d 134, 142 (Iowa 2001). Here, we need not decide whether Ford’s counsel failed to perform any essential duty because, regardless, Ford failed to prove there was a reasonable probability that he would not have entered his guilty plea if his counsel had conducted a further investigation. Ford testified that he wanted to get out of jail quickly because of his more serious pending criminal charges in North Dakota. This reason for pleading guilty is independent of the extent of any further investigation by Ford’s counsel. And Ford has offered no evidence showing any reasonable probability that his decision to plead guilty would have been different even if his counsel had first investigated further and found more evidence that could have been used to dispute his guilt at trial.2 So even if Ford is correct—as he argues for the first time on appeal— that his counsel could have advised him to wait to accept the plea deal until he had served the final four days in jail and used that time to “investigate[] the evidence” without jeopardizing the deal, Ford has not shown a reasonable probability that he would have changed his mind and refused the plea deal if his counsel had successfully done so. What’s more, Ford failed to submit the bodycam or dashcam videos that he alleges his counsel should have obtained before assisting him with his guilty plea. Nor did he submit any other evidence that he contends should have been found by his counsel in a further investigation. Without seeing the content of the videos or other evidence, we cannot say that Ford has shown 2 Ford testified to his belief that “I could have got my case dismissed if my attorney had done his job.” But neither on appeal nor in the district court has Ford supported that belief with any argument or supporting authority for how the additional evidence would have provided a basis for dismissal of his case before trial. 5 a reasonable probability that obtaining that evidence would have changed his decision to plead guilty. Because Ford failed to prove prejudice, his ineffective-assistance-of- counsel claim fails. We thus affirm the district court’s denial of Ford’s application for postconviction relief on that basis. AFFIRMED. 6