Edward Waterbury v. Crispus Nix, Warden, Iowa State Penitentiary

Appellant Edward Waterbury appeals the district court’s 1 denial of his 28 U.S.C. § 2254 habeas petition in which he seeks relief from his life sentence without parole for first degree murder. The district court determined that Waterbury had procedurally defaulted on his claims of error in various jury instructions given at trial because he had failed to preserve the claims by means of contemporaneous objection as required by Iowa law. On appeal, Waterbury asserts that procedural default does not apply to his case because (1) Iowa recognizes a fundamental error exception to its…