Michael Troy Eskridge
v.
State of Iowa
Appellant
Michael Troy Eskridge
Appellee
State of Iowa
Attorney for the Appellant
Lauren M. Phelps
Attorney for the Appellee
Timothy M. Hau, Assistant Attorney General
Court of Appeals
Court of Appeals Opinion
Opinion Number:
Date Published:
Summary
Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Scott County, Stuart P. Werling, Judge. AFFIRMED. Considered by Tabor, P.J., and Mullins and Schumacher, JJ. Opinion by Tabor, P.J. (6 pages)
Michael Eskridge sold crystal methamphetamine to undercover police officer three times. The district court sentenced him to a mandatory minimum of eight and one-third years. In his allocution, Michael asked the court to consider letters and class certificates and to use its discretion to reduce the mandatory minimum sentence from 8.3 years to 5.6 years. At the postconviction-relief (PCR) hearing, the PCR court denied his claim that because his trial attorney did not move to admit the letters or certificates into evidence his mandatory minimum sentence would have been different. On appeal, Eskridge claims that trial counsel’s failure to enter the documents as exhibits at sentencing “cut off his ability to appeal the sentence in his case.” OPINION HOLDS: Eskridge cannot show that had trial counsel offered letters and certificates into the record, a reasonable probability existed that he would have been successful in appealing an adverse sentencing decision. Eskridge is not entitled to relief.
