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IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA No. 0-740 / 10-0129 Filed December 22, 2010

ALVIN LEE GAINES, JR., Applicant-Appellant, vs. STATE OF IOWA, Respondent-Appellee. ________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Linn County, Ian K. Thornhill, Judge.

A postconviction relief applicant alleges that his original trial counsel was ineffective (1) in failing to object to the first two findings of guilt as inconsistent and (2) in failing to challenge the jury instruction on the crime of going armed with intent. AFFIRMED.

Erek P. Sittig, Cedar Rapids, for appellant. Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Kevin Cmelik, Assistant Attorney General, Harold Denton, County Attorney, and Susan Nehring, Assistant County Attorney, for appellee State.

Heard by Sackett, C.J., and Vogel and Vaitheswaran, JJ. Tabor, J., takes no part.

2 VAITHESWARAN, J. Following a shooting in Cedar Rapids, a jury found Alvin Gaines guilty of attempted murder, willful injury, and going armed with intent. This court affirmed his judgment and sentence. State v. Gaines, No. 07-0987 (Iowa Ct. App. June 25, 2008). Gaines applied for postconviction relief. He alleged his trial attorney was ineffective (1) in failing to object to the first two findings of guilt as inconsistent and (2) in failing to challenge the jury instruction on the crime of going armed with intent. The district court denied the application and this appeal followed. To prevail, Gaines must show that counsel breached an essential duty and prejudice resulted. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687, 104 S. Ct. 2052, 2064, 80 L. Ed. 2d 674, 693 (1984). Our review is de novo. Ledezma v. State, 626 N.W.2d 134, 141 (Iowa 2001). I. Inconsistent Verdicts Gaines contends the jurys findings of guilt on the attempted murder and willful injury counts were inconsistent. See State v. Pearson, 547 N.W.2d 236, 240 (Iowa Ct. App. 1996) ("Multiple verdicts as to separate counts are inconsistent if the factual and legal conclusions implicit in one verdict are rationally incompatible with those implicit in the jurys findings as to the other counts."). His argument is premised on the specific intent element of each crime. In his view, these crimes "require two different and competing specific intents." We disagree. Attempted murder requires that a person have the "intent to cause the death of another person." Iowa Code

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