Full Opinion

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA _______________ No. 25-0696 Filed October 21, 2026 _______________ Cody Ray Leveke, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. Donald Schnitker, (in his personal and official capacities as an employee of the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation), State of Iowa and Unidentified Entities 1-10, Defendants–Appellees. _______________ Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Polk County, The Honorable Patrick D. Smith, Judge. _______________ APPEAL DISMISSED _______________ Cody Ray Leveke, Newton, self-represented appellant. Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Eric Wessan, Solicitor General, Patrick C. Valencia, Deputy Solicitor General, Halle B. Kissell (until withdrawal), Assistant Solicitor General, and Lindsey L. Browning, Assistant Attorney General, attorneys for appellees. _______________ Considered without oral argument by Schumacher, P.J., and Ahlers and Badding, JJ. Opinion by Badding, J. 1 BADDING, Judge. In 2019, Special Agent Donald Schnitker with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation submitted an affidavit in federal court that asked for a warrant to arrest Cody Leveke. The affidavit alleged Leveke had made “terroristic threats” against a state senator who was working on legislation to change the process for removal from the sex offender registry. In an email that was quoted in the affidavit, Leveke stated, “I’m angry enough to pull a mass shooting down at the State House.” Schnitker’s affidavit asserted that Leveke had been convicted of third- degree sexual abuse and was a registered sex offender. Contending those statements were false, Leveke filed a pro se petition in August 2024 against Schnitker and the State of Iowa for defamation.1 The State moved to dismiss, arguing that Leveke’s claim was barred by sovereign immunity under Iowa Code section 669.14(4) (2024). Before the hearing on the State’s motion, Leveke was arrested for violating the terms of his federal supervised release. He notified the district court of his new address at the Polk County Jail and asked for an order allowing him to attend the hearing in person. Instead, the court set a remote hearing, which Leveke did not attend. He later notified the court that he had been moved to a federal prison in Kansas. On February 21, 2025, the district court entered a ruling that granted the State’s motion to dismiss. In March, Leveke filed a motion with the court, asking for an update on the case and asserting, “I have received no mail since 1 Leveke also named ten unidentified entities as defendants, asserting they were “individuals, government agencies or other entities who are or were employees, agents, or representatives of the State of Iowa” whose “true identities” were “unknown to Plaintiff at this time.” 2 my arrest . . . despite me updating my address.” Later that month, Leveke notified the court that he had been moved to a county jail in Oklahoma. The court entered an order in April, acknowledging that Leveke “may not have received documents filed in this case” since February and directing the clerk to mail those documents to Leveke at his most recent address. Two days later, Leveke notified the court that he had been moved again—this time to Illinois. On April 24—more than sixty days after the ruling dismissing his petition—Leveke filed a notice of appeal with the district court. The notice asserted: Plaintiff received notice of the Court’s February 21, 2025 decision on April 1, 2025. . . . Equitable tolling applies to any deadline missed, as the Plaintiff has made every effort to notice the court of his incarceration, and movements. Plaintiff has been held at 4 facilities, and only spends an average of 3 weeks at a facility before he is moved again. The State moved to dismiss Leveke’s appeal as untimely, and the supreme court ordered that issue to be submitted with the appeal. We conclude the motion should be granted. “Our rules of appellate procedure require a notice of appeal to ʻbe filed within 30 days after the filing of the final order or judgment.’” Concerned Citizens of Se. Polk Sch. Dist. v. City Dev. Bd., 872 N.W.2d 399, 401–02 (Iowa 2015) (quoting Iowa R. App. P. 6.101(1)(b)). “If a deadline is missed, even by a single day, the court has no jurisdiction to hear the appeal.” Id. at 402. Because the rules governing the time for appeal are “mandatory and jurisdictional,” an untimely appeal “must normally be dismissed.” Id.; see also Jones v. State, 981 N.W.2d 141, 145 (Iowa 2022) (“The failure to timely appeal generally terminates appellate jurisdiction.” (citation omitted)). 3 In resisting the State’s motion to dismiss, Leveke urges that he did not receive notice of the district court’s ruling and so the deadline should be tolled. “But failure by the clerk to provide notice of a ruling will not excuse an untimely appeal.” State v. Roland, No. 20-0458, 2021 WL 1400765, at *2 (Iowa Ct. App. Apr. 14, 2021). While the clerk must “promptly deliver or mail notice” of a ruling once it has been entered, Iowa R. Civ. P. 1.453, “[l]ack of notice of the entry by the clerk does not affect the time to appeal or relieve or authorize the district court to relieve a party for failure to appeal within the time allowed,” Iowa R. Civ. P. 1.442(6). “This rule holds true even where, through the negligence of the clerk, the parties are notified of the entry of an order beyond the time for appeal.” Hays v. Hays, 612 N.W.2d 817, 818–19 (Iowa Ct. App. 2000). “A direct appeal, taken at the time notice of the order is received, but outside the thirty-day period, is doomed to failure” under rule 1.442(6). Id. at 819. We recognize that Iowa Rule of Appellate Procedure 6.101(5) allows the supreme court to “extend the time for filing a notice of appeal if it determines the clerk of the district court failed to notify the prospective appellant of the filing of the appealable final order or judgment.” But Leveke did not file a motion with the supreme court asking for this relief. See Iowa R. App. P. 6.101(5)(a) (“A motion for an extension of time must be filed with the clerk of the supreme court and served on all parties and the clerk of the district court no later than 60 days after expiration of the original appeal deadline as prescribed in rule 6.101(1)(a)-(b).”). Even though Leveke is representing himself, “we do not utilize a deferential standard.” Hays, 612 N.W.2d at 819. We also recognize that our supreme court has allowed delayed appeals in criminal cases “and in some ʻtermination-of-parental rights cases 4 depending on the circumstances.’” Jones, 981 N.W.2d at 145 (quoting Anderson v. State, 962 N.W.2d 760, 762 (Iowa 2021)). And while the court has noted that “[t]he same federal constitutional considerations which have forced us to recognize delayed appeals in criminal cases are potentially applicable in some civil settings,” it has never applied those considerations to a civil case like this one. Swanson v. State, 406 N.W.2d 792, 792 n.1 (Iowa 1987); see also Jones, 981 N.W.2d at 147 (“Due process does not require a right to a delayed appeal in postconviction proceedings.”). As the court in Jones explained: Our rules require the notice of appeal to be filed within thirty days. That ends the inquiry. This deadline imposes a limit on the court’s jurisdiction that we decline to extend though extemporaneous suspensions of enforcement on a case-by-case basis. Ad hoc exceptions undermine the efficacy of the rules and create confusion. 981 N.W.2d at 147. Because we do not have jurisdiction over Leveke’s untimely appeal, we grant the State’s motion to dismiss. APPEAL DISMISSED. 5