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IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA No. 2-168 / 11-0513 Filed June 27, 2012

JONATHAN MEMMER, Applicant-Appellant, vs. STATE OF IOWA, Respondent-Appellee. ________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Johnson County, Nancy A. Baumgartner, Judge.

Jonathan Memmer appeals from the denial of his application for postconviction relief. AFFIRMED.

Mark C. Meyer, Cedar Rapids, for appellant. Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Sharon K. Hall, Assistant Attorney General, Janet M. Lyness, County Attorney, and Andrew B. Chappell, Assistant County Attorney, for appellee State.

Heard by Vaitheswaran, P.J., and Doyle and Danilson, JJ.

2 DOYLE, J. In 2001, a jury found Jonathan Memmer guilty of two counts of first-degree murder. Memmer appealed. In our decision we summarized the facts as follows: Two women were brutally murdered, their bodies later found in a burning apartment building in Iowa City. Numerous people observed Memmer in the vicinity of the apartment complex and earlier with the women at drinking establishments. At trial, several witnesses testified to observing Memmer in the days before and after the murders. State v. Memmer, No. 01-1869, 2003 WL 21542489, at *1 (Iowa Ct. App. July 10, 2003). Rejecting Memmer's claims of district court error, we affirmed Memmer's convictions and preserved his ineffective-assistance-of-counsel claims for postconviction proceedings. Id. at *2. In April 2004, Memmer filed his application, later amended, for postconviction relief (PCR) asserting thirteen claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. Following a trial on his application, the PCR court entered its order denying and dismissing Memmer's application. This appeal followed. Memmer reasserts two claims raised before and decided by the PCR court: Trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to the felony-murder related jury instructions and to evidence and statements Memmer deemed prejudicial, inadmissible, or unreliable. Upon our de novo review of these issues, see Castro v. State, 795 N.W.2d 789, 792 (Iowa 2011), we conclude the PCR court thoroughly discussed Memmer's claims and correctly applied the law.1

Regarding the PCR court's resolution of Memmer's felony-murder-instruction claims, as indicated above, we agree with the court's reasoning, application of law, and conclusions, and so affirm. But even if we had not agreed, we would have affirmed on another basis. See, e.g., Sims v. NCI Holding Corp., 759 N.W.2d 333, 341 (Iowa 2009) ("[A]lthough our rationale differs from that of the district court, we reach the same result,

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3 Further discussion of those issues would be of no value. 21.29(1)(d), (e). Additionally, Memmer asserts on appeal one new claim not raised before the PCR court: That his sentences of life in prison without parole are illegal because the jury did not make a finding that the acts that caused the death of each victim were committed separate from the acts constituting the underlying forcible felony. Specifically, he argues: The jury was not elsewhere instructed that they must find that the infliction of bodily injury during the burglary must be independent of the homicide. Because the jury did not make a separate-acts finding in connection with the felony-murder offense, [he] has been illegally sentenced to consecutive terms of life in prison for the enhanced offense of murder in the first degree. In other words, the jury was not instructed that there must be separate acts underlying the murder and the associated felony, and thus, the jury did not find, beyond a reasonable doubt, the facts necessary to enhance the offense to murder in the first degree and thereby increase the statutory maximum sentence from fifty years [Iowa Code

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