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IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA No. 7-901 / 07-0212 Filed December 28, 2007

KEITH ROBERT BROWN, Applicant-Appellant, vs. STATE OF IOWA, Respondent-Appellee. ________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Scott County, Gary D. McKenrick, Judge.

Keith Robert Brown appeals the district court decision denying his motion for attorney fees related to his postconviction relief application. AFFIRMED.

Michael E. Motto of Bush, Motto, Creen, Koury & Halligan, P.L.C., Davenport, for appellant. Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Thomas W. Andrews, Assistant Attorney General, and Michael J. Walton, County Attorney, for appellee State.

Considered by Huitink, P.J., and Miller and Eisenhauer, JJ.

2 HUITINK, P.J. Keith Robert Brown appeals the district court decision denying his motion for attorney fees related to his postconviction relief application. We affirm. I. Background Facts and Prior Proceedings In 1999 Brown was convicted of second-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping, willful injury, and conspiracy to commit willful injury for his role in the death of Virgil Engelkens. This conviction was affirmed on appeal. In 2001 Brown, with help from his parents, paid a private attorney $25,000 to handle his postconviction relief action. The district court denied his petition for postconviction relief, but our court reversed the district court and remanded for a new trial. In so ruling, we chose not to address Brown's claims of prosecutorial misconduct, but found his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to inadmissible evidence and for failing to request a specific jury instruction. After a second jury trial in June 2005, Brown was once again convicted of the counts listed above. Brown filed a pro se "Motion to Recover Attorney Fees & Costs" pertaining to the $25,000 he had paid to his postconviction relief counsel. In this motion, Brown claimed he was entitled to recover all of his attorney fees and costs, plus interest, "pursuant to Iowa Code

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