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IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA No. 9-892 / 08-0917 Filed January 22, 2010

STATE OF IOWA, Plaintiff-Appellee, vs. MARSHALL CALVIN NICKELSON, Defendant-Appellant. ________________________________________________________________

Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Linn County, Douglas S. Russell, Judge.

A defendant appeals from the special sentence imposed under Iowa Code section 903B.1 (2007) upon his conviction for third-degree sexual abuse. AFFIRMED.

Mark C. Smith, State Appellate Defender, and Robert P. Ranschau, Assistant Appellate Defender, for appellant. Thomas J. Miller, Attorney General, Elisabeth S. Reynoldson, Assistant Attorney General, Harold Denton, County Attorney, and Jerry Vander Sanden, Assistant County Attorney, for appellee.

Considered by Sackett, C.J., and Vaitheswaran and Danilson, JJ.

2 VAITHESWARAN, J. A jury found Marshall Nickelson guilty of third-degree sexual abuse. The district court sentenced him to an indeterminate prison term of ten years as well as a special life sentence pursuant to Iowa Code section 903B.1 (2007). On appeal Nickelson contends his trial attorney was ineffective in failing to challenge the constitutionality of section 903B.1.1 He argues that section 903B.1 violates (1) the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment contained in the Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution; (2) the separation of powers doctrine of the Iowa Constitution; (3) the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution; and (4) the Due Process Clauses of the United States and Iowa Constitutions. We begin with Nickelson's Eighth Amendment challenge. The Iowa

Supreme Court addressed and rejected a virtually identical challenge in State v. Wade, 757 N.W.2d 618, 623

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