State of Iowa v. Terrence Gordon, 943 N.W.2d 1

Terrence Gordon was charged after a domestic incident that included assaulting a police officer with a dangerous weapon (a forcible felony), other assault counts, public intoxication, and criminal mischief.
Bail was initially set high; Gordon remained jailed. The parties negotiated a plea: guilty pleas to all counts, concurrent five-year terms, and a 48-hour jail furlough to run before mittimus (with condition he return sober).
A first judge rejected the furlough term as unlawful for a forcible felony; a second judge accepted the plea and ordered the 48-hour furlough. Gordon failed to return and a warrant issued; he was later apprehended and is now in custody.
On appeal Gordon argued his plea should be vacated for ineffective assistance of counsel and prosecutorial misconduct because the plea contained the unlawful furlough term that counsel negotiated and the State honored.
The State urged dismissal of the appeal because Gordon absconded, and alternatively argued the claim was barred or moot; the court considered retroactivity of legislative changes limiting direct appeals for ineffective-assistance claims.
The Iowa Supreme Court affirmed the conviction, concluding Gordon cannot attack the plea based on an illegal, defendant-driven benefit he received and then breached.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (State)	Defendant's Argument (Gordon)	Held
Whether appeal should be dismissed because Gordon absconded	Dismiss under Dyer for absconding	Not applicable — Gordon was recaptured; Byrd allows appeal to proceed	Appeal not dismissed; Byrd controls (Gordon recaptured)
Whether Senate File 589 (limiting direct IAC claims) bars this direct appeal	Statutory amendment applies retroactively to pending appeals; IAC claims must be in PCR	Amendment not retroactive to appeals from judgments before July 1, 2019	Amendment does not apply here (Macke)
Whether Gordon can obtain relief for counsel’s alleged IAC where plea included illegal 48-hour furlough	No relief: Gordon got the illegal benefit, breached it, and cannot profit from his own breach; claim is moot/invited error	Illegal plea term vitiates plea; counsel ineffective; plea void and must be vacated	Held for State: Gordon precluded as a matter of law from attacking plea he instigated, benefited from, and then breached
Validity of a plea that includes an illegal term (void vs. voidable)	The district court merely delayed mittimus; sentence not void here and State did not breach	Plea is illegal/void (analogy to contract law); Dillon supports nonenforcement	Court declines to void plea under these unique facts; denies relief given defendant’s conduct

State v. Thorndike, 860 N.W.2d 316 (Iowa 2015) (standard of review for ineffective-assistance claims)
State v. Byrd, 448 N.W.2d 29 (Iowa 1989) (allowing appeal after defendant was recaptured)
State v. Dyer, 551 N.W.2d 320 (Iowa 1996) (dismissing appeal where defendant remained at large)
State v. Macke, 933 N.W.2d 226 (Iowa 2019) (statutory amendment to Iowa Code § 814.7 not applied retroactively to judgments entered before July 1, 2019)
Iowa Supreme Court Attorney Disciplinary Bd. v. Howe, 706 N.W.2d 360 (Iowa 2005) (disciplinary sanction where prosecutor filed or accepted improper pleas)
Graves v. State, 822 So. 2d 1089 (Miss. Ct. App. 2002) (defendant who benefited from an illegal leniency cannot later collaterally attack it)
Rhodes v. State, 240 S.W.3d 882 (Tex. Crim. App. 2007) (a defendant cannot accept an illegal sentence and later attack it when it becomes disadvantageous)
People v. Young, 2 N.E.3d 445 (Ill. App. Ct. 2013) (denying collateral attack where defendant enjoyed benefits of an illegally lenient plea)
United States v. Erwin, 765 F.3d 219 (3d Cir. 2014) (party may not benefit from its own breach of a plea agreement; enforcing bargains promotes plea stability)