Edittext inside listview loses focus when return key is pressed

Question

I have a listview and inside it I have several edit texts. Initially I had a problem with edit text not getting focus when selected for the first time and I was able to solve it with the help of this link

I have one edittext that is multiline which is defined like this

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:layout_width="match_parent"
    android:layout_height="wrap_content" >
    <EditText
        android:inputType="textMultiLine"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:textColor="@android:color/black"
        android:id="@+id/multiLineText" />
</LinearLayout>

in this edit text, whenever the return key is pressed, it loses its focus. A look at the stack trace points to a runtime exception

11-18 11:13:37.675 W/Binder  (25836): Caught a RuntimeException from the binder stub implementation.
11-18 11:13:37.675 W/Binder  (25836): java.lang.NullPointerException
11-18 11:13:37.675 W/Binder  (25836):   at android.view.textservice.SpellCheckerSession$SpellCheckerSessionListenerImpl.onGetSentenceSuggestions(SpellCheckerSession.java:430)
11-18 11:13:37.675 W/Binder  (25836):   at com.android.internal.textservice.ISpellCheckerSessionListener$Stub.onTransact(ISpellCheckerSessionListener.java:61)
11-18 11:13:37.675 W/Binder  (25836):   at android.os.Binder.execTransact(Binder.java:404)
11-18 11:13:37.675 W/Binder  (25836):   at dalvik.system.NativeStart.run(Native Method)

I am clueless as to what causes this exception. Any help would be much appreciated.

Edit: Additional code

Main ListView Layout

<LinearLayout xmlns:android="http://schemas.android.com/apk/res/android"
    android:orientation="vertical"
    android:layout_width="fill_parent"
    android:layout_height="fill_parent">
    <ListView
        android:minWidth="25px"
        android:minHeight="25px"
        android:layout_width="match_parent"
        android:layout_height="wrap_content"
        android:id="@+id/newListView"
        android:descendantFocusability="beforeDescendants" />
</LinearLayout>

Main Activity

[Activity(Label = "New", MainLauncher = true, ScreenOrientation = ScreenOrientation.Portrait, WindowSoftInputMode=SoftInput.AdjustPan)]
    public class NewActivity : Activity
    {
        ListView newListView;
        NewListAdapter source;

        protected override void OnCreate(Bundle bundle)
        {
            base.OnCreate(bundle);

            SetContentView(Resource.Layout.NewView);
            newListView = FindViewById<ListView>(Resource.Id.newListView);
            var items = GetItems(); // returns list of custom objects
            source = new NewListAdapter(this, items);
            newListView.Adapter = source;
        }
}

Custom Adapter - GetView

public override View GetView(int position, View convertView, ViewGroup parent)
        {
            var item = this[position];
            View view = convertView;
            if (view == null)
            {

                NewItemType type = (NewItemType)GetItemViewType(position);
                switch (type)
                { 
                    //other items
                    case (NewItemType.Notes):
                     view = context.LayoutInflater.Inflate(Resource.Layout.text_input_list_item, null); //layout for the troublesome edit text
                     break;
                }
            }               

            return view;
        }