Tony Armstrong v. State of Iowa

LOKEN, Chief Judge.

Tony Armstrong was convicted by an Iowa court of second-degree sexual abuse and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. The Supreme Court of Iowa dismissed his direct appeal as frivolous, and the trial court denied his application for state post-conviction relief. Armstrong then filed this pro se petition for federal habeas corpus relief. The district court 1 dismissed the petition with prejudice, concluding that Armstrong’s claims are procedurally defaulted because he did not appeal the denial of post-conviction relief to the Supreme Court of Iowa and he failed to show…