Background
Sergio Ochoa Pulido pleaded guilty in 2004 to second-degree murder and attempted murder. The district court imposed consecutive indeterminate terms of fifty and twenty-five years. Because both offenses were forcible felonies, Iowa Code section 902.12 required him to serve seventy percent of each maximum term before becoming eligible for parole or work release.
In 2024, Pulido sought postconviction relief, arguing that the mandatory minimum was illegal under Iowa due process protections. Relying on New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, he contended that the court should assess the sentencing rule under a text-history-and-tradition framework. The district court treated the application as a motion to correct an illegal sentence, reached the merits, and denied relief.
The Court’s Holding
The Iowa Court of Appeals affirmed. It held that Bruen supplies a framework for Second Amendment challenges and does not displace established due-process law governing criminal sentencing. The court followed its prior decision in Cue v. State, which rejected a materially similar attempt to use Bruen to challenge Iowa’s mandatory-minimum scheme.
The court also held that binding Iowa precedent sustains section 902.12 against due-process challenges and recognizes the legislature’s authority to prescribe criminal punishments. Pulido’s argument was additionally underdeveloped because he did not identify whether he asserted substantive or procedural due process or provide more than a perfunctory basis for extending Bruen.
Key Takeaways
- Bruen does not establish a general text-history-and-tradition test for due-process challenges to criminal sentences.
- Iowa’s seventy-percent mandatory-minimum requirement for qualifying forcible felonies remains valid against this due-process challenge.
- A party forfeits an appellate issue by presenting only a perfunctory argument.
Why It Matters
The decision confirms that Iowa appellate courts will not use Bruen to reopen settled constitutional challenges to mandatory-minimum sentencing laws outside the Second Amendment context. It also reinforces the legislature’s authority to set mandatory punishment and parole-eligibility rules.