New Court Fee Schedules

Governor Culver signed last night Senate File 478, which made a number of changes that will help the budget situation for the Court system. The big thing is the increases in the filing fees for a number of different cases. Those can be found here.

A longer list of the changes can be found here.

Iowa Supreme Court 4/17/09

Four new opinions, today, but one was a per curiam opinion based on one of the others. I think I brought this up before, but I have to think that, when two similar cases are decided at the same time, one gets full treatment and the other a per curiam opinion, the defendant who got the per curiam opinion, regardless of the outcome, has to feel a little slighted. Anyway, her we go:

Goosman v. State - Reviewing the Heemstradecision to determine if it applies retroactively. The Court says that, because the Court was changing the law, rather than just clarifying the law as it stood at the time of the offense, the change is not applied retroactively. Now, I think I learned in law school that courts don’t change law, they just say what the law has always been, regardless of what they said previously. Hmmm…

This was argued under the Federal Due Process Clause, so I imagine we’ll see some application to the US Supreme Court regarding this. We’ll see how that turns out. Also, the sister case of Scott v. Iowa was decided per curiam with the same outcome.

Heemstra, by the way, held that, when a person commits a felonious assault and the result of that assault is the death of the “assaultee”, the assault merges into the homicide and cannot be used as the predicate offense for a felony-murder theory of prosecution.

State v. Stone- This is an appeal from a driving under suspension conviction. The defendant’s license was suspended for an OWI test refusal. He was charged with violating the terms of his work permit (he got his truck washed and stopped at McDonalds, oh no!). The DOT later rescinded his suspension, for whatever reason. He argued that the evidence of his suspension should not be admissible at trial because it was later rescinded.

The Court affirmed the district court ruling that a rescission of a license suspension does not magically wipe away any evidence of that suspension. At the time he was stopped for expired tags, he was suspended and the conviction stands.

Here’s some helpful advice to people like Mr. Stone: If you’re going to drive without a license or violate the terms of your license, make sure your tags are current and your car is in good working order, and don’t drive like your in the lightbike scene from Tron, because that will get you every time.

Harder v. Anderson, Arnold, Dickey, Jensen, Gullickson and Sanger, LLP, et al. – A noncustodial mother appeals the district court’s ruling that she was not entitled to an injunction requiring her children’s therapist to release the children’s mental health records. The Court holds that the standard in a case like this is what is in the best interests of the child. Viewing the case using that standard, the Court holds that requiring the release of the records would not be in the children’s best interests, so the Court affirms the lower court.

One of the more poignant portions of Justice Wiggins opinion from page 8:

“Moreover, Susan claims she is seeking the records for use in her own therapy, in order to get a larger picture of her children’s feelings towards her, and repair her strained relationship with her daughter. To help Susan achieve this goal, without compromising the mental health of the children, Pini offered to meet with Susan to answer her questions or listen to her concerns dealing with the children. Pini also agreed to work with Susan’s therapist to coordinate Susan’s therapy. Instead of exploring these options with Pini, Susan filed her action demanding the release of her children’s records. Susan’s actions lead us to believe that her request for the records is in her own best interest rather than that of

her children.”

 

Isn’t that always the case?

Final thoughts on Varnum v. Brien

So this case covers a lot of ground. It has a lot of good quotes and I thnk it’s well-reasoned. I’m disappointed that the Court didn’t make a determination as to whether sexual orientation is a suspect or quasi-suspect class. I think it may muddy the waters somewhat, but they may not have wanted to go too far in their first foray into that decision. Since the County argued rationale basis, I suppose it would have been difficult to make that determination based on the record in front of them. At least we know that rational basis will not apply in the future.

One thing that I’ve thought about in the past: The term “marriage” seems to be the big problem, here. Marriage is a religious ceremony. Legally, it’s nothing more than a civil contract. Why don’t we treat it that way? Take the term marriage out of the Iowa Code altogether and simply have civil unions for all people. If they want to get “married” they can go to a church.

Now, I suppose I should actually try to get something done today.

Varnum v. Brien

Varnum v. Brien

I’m going to blog while I read. The first thing I notice is that, after the first page, which lists the parties and their attorneys, there are five pages of all the amici. A lot of lawyers made a lot of money on this case. Best attorney name I found: Tobias Barrington Wolff of the University of Pennsylvania Law School. For some reason, I don’t think he had an upbringing like mine.

69 pages folks, which is not surprising considering that the opinion is written by Justice Cady. One other thing of note is that there are no dissents. It will be interesting to see if the opinion appears to be watered down to make it palatable for all the Justices, but, now that I think of it, I can’t think of one who I get the impression would need it watered down.

Oh Justice Cady. The first paragraph is a little sappy for me, but that’s OK. “Like all Iowans, they prize their liberties and live within the borders of this state with the expectation that their rights will be maintained and protected – a belief embraced by our state motto.” I would have put the state motto directly into the paragraph, rather than a footnote, but whatever.

I hadn’t really paid attention to this case until now. One thing that they did that was really smart, and I’m sure it’s been done in the other states where this has come up, was to not claim that the statute violated their rights under the United States Constitution. Only the Iowa Constitution. Therefore, no federal question exists for which the State could appeal to the United States Supreme Court. This is solely an Iowa issue.

I also notice that Justice Cady keeps making comparisons with “other Iowans” as if he’s trying to normalize the plaintiffs to citizens of the state who may not be so accepting of this decision.

A couple more interesting things. First, this was an appeal from a summary judgment motion. Therefore, no in-person testimony, only affidavits and depositions. Some of the affidavits by the plaintiffs contain the things they wish they could do for their partners “including decisions related to health care, burial arrangements, autopsy, and disposition of remains following death.” There are ways to do give people the right to make these decisions for you outside of marriage. Sure the provision concerning allowing someone other than a spouse or next of kin to determine the disposition of remains went into effect only last year, but that makes this point moot. Granted, it’s a small issue, but I probably wouldn’t have included it because it feels to me like it makes the argument weaker.

I think the County was in a tough position here. I wonder if they were really into this or just doing their jobs. They cite five “primary interests of society in support of the legislature’s exclusive definition of marriage.” The fifth is the “governmental interest in promoting the concept and integrity of the traditional notion of marriage.” I always find that laughable as an argument. With a 50% divorce rate, is there really any integrity in the traditional notion of marriage?

It also appears that the County put up a bunch of fringe “scientists” in support of their arguments. A retired pediatrician, a clinical psychologist and two college professors? On the other side we have the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, the National Association of Social Workers, and the Child Welfare League of America. Not good odds. “Almost every professional group that has studied the issue indicates children are not harmed when raised by same-sex couples, but to the contrary, benefit from them.”

We get the standard of review for summary judgment rulings and head into a discussion of Separation of Powers. The Court obviously knows this is a big decision and is making it clear they understand their role and are not “legislating from the bench.” This is an opinion for the people to read, not just lawyers.

A nice shout-out to Chief Justice Marshall and Marbury v. Madison. I like the quote from Justice Jackson better, though: “the very purpose of limiting the power of the elected branches of government by constitutional provisions like the Equal Protection Clause is ‘to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to etablish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts.’” I’m going to start saying “vicissitudes”.

“Finally, it should be recognized that the constitution belongs to the people, not the government or even the judicial branch of government.” (citation omitted). While the constitution is the supreme law and cannot be altered by the enactment of an ordinary statute, the power of the constitution flows from the people, and the people of Iowa retain the ultimate power to shape it over time.” (citation omitted). We can certainly recall this from the last election cycle and what happened in California. I would imagine there will be a similar movement in Iowa, the success of which is something we’ll have to wait to find out.

At page 17 begins the history of the Equal Protection Clause of the Iowa Constitution. Some things I didn’t know that make me proud to be an Iowan: the Iowa Supreme Court issued a decision in 1839, almost 20 years before the infamous U.S. Supreme Court’s Dred Scott, that held that a person is not property; in 1839 the Iowa Supreme Court began issuing opinions that “struck blows to the conept of segregation” (Brown v Board of Education was 1954); “Iowa was also the first state in the nation to admit a woman to the practice of law, doing so in 1869.”

Page 19, footnote 6: “Here again, we find federal precedent instructive in interpreting the Iowa Constitution, but refuse to follow it blindly. . . . the federal framework traditionally employed for resolution of equal protection cases provides a useful starting point for evaluation of Iowa’s constitutional equal protection provision.”

A nice explanation of the differences between rational basis, heightened scrutiny and strict scrutiny. I’m interested to find out which one they use…

What, there are other issues besides Equal Protection? The County appealed the exclusion of some of the testimony it offered in support of its position on the summary judgment motion. I guess we’ll have to deal with that first. More nice explanations for the lay people reading this opinion.

So, basically, the County wanted to have testimony about the background of the Constitution and the District Court didn’t allow it. The County probably made an offer of proof or some such thing and so that testimony is part of the record for the Supreme Court’s de novo review. “The error committed by the trial court in failing to [consider the evidence] is of no consequence under our de novo reviewing standard.”

The County claims that, since same-sex couples can’t, for lack of a better term, “naturally” procreate, they are not similarly situated to opposite-sex couples. The similarly situated test is a “threshold” to getting to true Equal Protection analysis. The Court determines that same-sex couples are similarly situated because you can’t make that determination based solely on one characteristic. Notably, in footnote 9 on page 29, the Court says that the threshold test may not really be useful: “. . . we have, at times, directly or indirectly infused that analysis . . . This approach is almost inevitable for the test to have any real value as an analytical tool to resolve equal protection claims. Conseqently, we question the usefulness of the threshold test and express caution in the future use of th threshold analysis.” In true judicial form, though, because the threshold test isn’t dispositive in this case, they’ll deal with it in some future case.

Interesting, the District Court determined that the law classifies on the basis of gender. The Supreme Court determines that it classifies on the basis of sexual orientation. I smell a new protected class here. This is big.

Reading along, four considerations to determine if a higher level of scrutiny is required: 1. History of discrimination, check; 2. Ability to contribute to society, check; 3. Immutability, check; 4. Political powerlessness, check. So rational basis isn’t going to cut it. So is it heightened scrutiny or strict scrutiny?

Punt! What!? “Because we conclude Iowa’s same-sex marriage statute cannot withstand intermediate scrutiny, we need not decide whether classifications based on sexual orientation are subject to a higher level of scrutiny.” I was not expecting that. But, true judicial form…

So we’re looking at heightened scrutiny analysis: substantially related to an important governement interest. County’s first important government interest is tradition. Court says that’s no governmental interest. Second is interpreted by the Court to be “the best interests of children”, which the Court says is an important governmental interest. But, “Plaintiffs presented an abundance of evidence and research, confirmed by our independent research, supporting the proposition that the interests of children are served equally by same-sex parents and opposit-sex parents. On the other hand, we acknowledge the existence of reasoned opinions that dual-gender parenting is the optimal environment for children. These opinions, while thoughtful and sincere, were largely unsupported by reliable scientific studies.” Ouch.

To be substantially related to a geovernmental interest, the law cannot be too under- or over-inclusive. Since the law doesn’t ban child abusers from getting married, it’s under-inclusive. Since it restricts same-sex couples who don’t want to have children from getting married, it’s over-inclusive. I’ve gotta say, I like that Justice Cady was chosen to write this. Though his opinions often go a little too far into history for me, they’re always well-reasoned and almost unassailable in their logic.

Next argument is that the law promotes procreation, which continues the human race. “[T]he sole conceivable avenue by which exclusion of gay and lesbian people from civil marriage could promote more procreation is if the unavailability of civil marriage for same-sex partners caused homosexual individuals to “become” heterosexual in order to procreate wihin the present traditional institution of civil marriage. . . . Even if possibly true, the link between exclusion of gay and lesbian people from marriage and increased procreation is far too tenuous to withstand heightened scrutiny.” This one is under-inclusive because it doesn’t say anything about those who don’t procreate for other reasons (age, health, etc.).

Next is the promotion of stability in same-sex marriages. County doesn’t say how this law does that, and the Court can’t find a reason. No dice.

County argues conservation of resources through fewer tax breaks for married people, benefits paid, etc. “Excluding any group from civil marriage – African-Americans, illegitamtes [don't like that term], aliens [that one either], even red-haried individuals [hey, my daughter has red hair] – would conserve state resources in an equally “rational” way. Yet, such classifications so obviously offend our society’s collective sense of equality that the courts have not hesitated to provide added protections against such inequities.”

“While the objectives asserted may be important, (and many undoubtedly are important), none are furthered in a substantial way by the exclusion of same-sex couples from civil marriage.”

I questioned why the Court put anything in the opinion about religious views, especially since the County didn’t raise that issue. THen I realized that, starting on page 63, the Court is assuring all religions that they still have a right to determine who gets married in their churches. More for the lay-people than for the great legal mids, such as myself.

The remedy portion of the opinion is interesting. I haven’t followd this issue closely, but apparently Courts in other jurisdictions have done one of two things: allow same-sex couples to marry or allow state legislatures to provide some similar avenue, such as civil union. The Court here doesn’t see how the second option would be any less repugnant to Equal Protection. It would be like segregation, I suppose. So, same-sex couples get to marry.

Property Taxes and the Iowa Supreme Court

So I’m catching up on my Iowa Supreme Court cases, today. I just finished Soifer v. Floyd County Board of Review and, have to say, I respectfully disagree with the Court’s decision, and the precedent it followed.

It appears clear to me that the assessed value of a property should be based solely on the property’s inherent value. Sure, you can say this property is set up as a restaurant, so it should have a similar value to other reastaurant properties. In Soifer, though, the Court says that the assessed value of a McDonald’s restaurant is best determined by comparing it to the sales of other fast-food franchise restaurants sold as going concerns, meaning that someone is buying both the real estate and the business.

To me, when you value something based on that much specificity of its use, you begin to add some of the value of the business as a going concern to the value you are taxing. You no longer are taxing just the value of the property, but also the intangible value that a particular business brings to the site.

In my opinion, properties should be valued as if they were empty, without any business to speak of. A restaurant is a restaurant, but you can certainly place a value on the land and the structure without looking at the success of the business that occupies the space.

I think this may be an issue that the legislature should take up, as there is a string of cases that the Court relied on in Soifer, and it doesn’t appear that they are making any plans to right the ship.

Wow. It has been a while.

So I have not posted anything other than court schedules for quite some time. I guess I’ve had a lot going on. The most notable I suppose is the arrival of my son Max. He is now about a month old and I’m finally starting to settle back in to work.

I also joined Faceboook back in November. My sisters had been pushing me to do it and I thought it might be a good idea for a number of reasons. One of those reasons was advertising. I figured if I put my name and what I do out there for people in the area to see, it might draw in some business. It hasn’t worked, of course, but I think there is some real potential there and I may explore it more.

I also got to lose my first appeal. It was a termination of parental rights case and the opinion came out a couple of weeks ago. Not surprising, but I think the case, and many like it, raised a few issues. This was a case where the termination trial happened in May of 2008. In June, before an order had been entered, the flood occurred and wiped out the court file,  and both the judge’s and court reporter’s notes.

I tried a few things to get a new trial, but the didn’t work, of course. After I filed the appeal, I got an order from the Supremem Court requiring me to file a statement of evidence pursuant to the Rules of Civil Procedure. Now this begs the question, I think, what is a fair record on appeal? Do the parties get a fair appeal if the attorneys and everyone else involved has to try to recreate what happened during trial on paper? What happens to spontaneous objections and rulings from the bench during trial? I argued that point and lost.

I guess that’s the way it goes.

Dissension in the Court…

It’s been a couple…few?…weeks since I posted here. I probably shouldn’t be doing it now, but I need a break. So, new Iowa Supreme Court opinions today. Here goes:

Harper v. Pella Corporation- This is interesting. Harper sued Pella for injuries from fall at a home owned by Pella. The home is located in Kentucky. Pella moves for summary judgment on the grounds that Kentucky’s period of limitations is one year. District Court denied the motion. Pella again moves for summary judgment because there are no genuine issues of material fact concerning liability. This motion is granted. Harper appealed, Pella cross-appealed the denial of the first motion. The Court of Appeals affirmed on the liability ground and didn’t reach the limitations ground.

On further review, the Supreme Court says that it can’t decide. In a per curiam, the Court says that there are four who would affirm and four who would reverse.  As a result, the District Court ruling is affirmed by operation of law.

We have not seen this sort of dissension very often. It would have been nice to have Justice Baker taking part so we could have gotten a good opinion and a good dissent. We could have seen into the minds of those crazy Justices and understood why they feel the way they do. Oh well, those are the breaks.

Johnson v. Iowa District Court for Scott County - Today we find out what it takes to get a final hearing in the civil commitment of a sexually violent predator. At his annual review, Johnson presented evidence from a doctor that he had a 10% likelihood of re-offending. As a result, he asked for a final hearing to determine if he should be released. The District Court denied the request because Johnson did not show that he was likely to succeed at such a hearing. Johnson filed a writ of certiorari claiming that the Court exceeded its jurisdiction when it weighed the likelihood of release to determine whether or not he should have a final hearing.

The Court sustained the writ. Justice Streit explains that requiring the committed person to show a likelihood of success in a final hearing before granting such a hearing is basically giving the person a free pass at the final hearing.  He also explains the burdens during annual reviews and final hearings: “At an annual review, the committed person bear the burden of proof to show by a preponderance of the evidence there is competent evidence which would lead  a reasonable person to believe  a final hearing should be held.” p. 8 (citation and emphasis omitted). “At the final hearing, the state bears the burden of proof to show beyond a reasonable doubt the committed person’s mental abnormality has not changed.” Id. (citation and emphasis omitted).

The Court equates “competent evidence” with “admissible evidence”, so the bar is pretty low to get a final hearing. Interesting. I’m honestly a little glad that I don’t generally work with sexually violent predators, though they deserve representation as much as anyone. I don’t now if my stomach could take it, though.

State v. Wilkes – Wilkes was sitting in a running vehicle in the parking lot of a quarry on a cold night. An officer noticed and pulled his car behind Wilkes’ truck, leaving enough room for Wilkes to leave, if he wants. Officer approaches vehicle, smells alcohol and begins the process of arresting Wilkes for OWI.

Wilkes filed a motion to suppress saying that his 4th Amendment rights were violated because he was seized without probable cause. He claimed that the seizure occurred when the officer pulled up behind him with his headlights on (no overheads, by the way) and approached the vehicle. District Court granted the motion and State appealed. The Court of Appeals affirmed the suppression and the State asked for further review.

The Supreme Court vacated the decision of the Court of Appeals, reversed the order of the District Court and remanded. There was no seizure until after the officer smelled alcohol around Wilkes. There was no show of authority or anything that would lead a person to believe that they are not free to leave the scene.

Now, I ask this: How many people are going to feel free to leave a place when there is a police car behind them an an officer approaching? I understand that the officer never turned on the overheads, and I understand that the reserve officer stood behind the truck and did not approach the front. But, really. The language about a reasonable person not feeling like he couldn’t leave is ridiculous. Why not just leave it at this: The officer was performing a community protection service when he checked to make sure everyone in the vehicle was OK. That was not a seizure for the purposes of the 4th Amendment, but it did give rise to probable cause to believe there was some criminal activity.

Let’s forget all of this stuff about people feeling free to leave. There’s my soapbox for the month. Have a good weekend.

Let’s get ready to rumble!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, we’ll jump right in with the first new Iowa Supreme Court case of the day:

Capital Promotions, LLC v. Don King Productinos, Inc.- Capital sued Don King for intentional interference with a contractual relationship. Capital repped a fighter named Tye Fields who was a Des Moines native, lived in Missouri for some time and lived in Nevada when the alleged interference actually occurred. Capital is an Iowa LLC. The Court affirmed the decisions of the Court of Appeals and the District Court on Don King’s motion for summary judgment: Don King did not have sufficient contacts with the State of Iowa for the State to have personal jurisdiction over the company (Did someone say Fahrvergnügen?).

What about Don King’s hair? I imagine every time he drives through or flies over the Midwest some portion of his hair has contact with Iowa or its air space. Not enough? Oh. OK. But don’t blame me when it grows to such proportions that it blocks out the sun.

State v. Cowles- Sick, sick, sick, sick person. There are some of those out there. This is the State’s appeal on further review from the Iowa Court of Appeals. Cowles was charged with a multitude of separate counts concerning the sexual abuse of his daughter. He pled guilty to, among other things, one count of sexual abuse in the second degree. The parties asked for immediate sentencing and agreed that he should receive the maximum sentence of 25 years for that offense, a class B felony. Cowles was so sentenced and informed and understood that he would be required to serve no less than 70% of that sentence.

Cowles later asked the Court to correct his sentence, saying it was illegal because there was no admission that he committed any of the acts after July1, 1996, when the statute requiring the minimum sentence of 70% went into effect. The Court agreed and changed the sentence. The Court of Appeals upheld the order of the District Court.

The State sought further review, which gets us here. According to the Supremes, Cowles acknowledgment that he committed an act of this nature prior to February 3, 1997, Cowles admitting he committed such an act between April 9, 1996 and February 2, 1997, and Cowles acknowledging he wanted to plead guilty after being told he would have to serve 70% of the sentence mean that he made an “implicit admission” that he committed an act after July 1, 1996.

Thought I can’t say I like the guy, I can’t help but think this is a little weird. Since when is an implicit admission valid in criminal court? What happened to reasonable doubt? Hmmm…

State v. Johnson- The Court here decides that a District Court’s limitation on the actions of standby counsel in a criminal action is tried with the Defendant representing himself are OK. The Court told standby counsel that he could only give advice if the defendant asked him for it.

I was a little upset by this opinion when I first started reading it. As I got to the end where the District Court is quoted concerning the matter, I felt much better about it. Since there is no constitutional right to standby counsel, there is nothing wrong with the Court limiting the role of standby counsel.

Heeeeeeeeeeeeeere’s Justice!

Four new opinions from the Supreme Court of Iowa, today, and we’ll jump right in:

Iowa Supreme Court Attorney Disciplinary Board v. Buchanan - An attorney proposed to settle a civil matter by offering to destroy evidence of alleged forgery by the opposing party and agreeing that his client would not cooperate in any forgery prosecution against the opposing party. The Grievance Commission found that the attorney violated old ethics rule DR 1-102(A)(5) by engaging in conduct prejudicial to the administration of justice. The Commission gave the attorney a private reprimand.

The Board appealed, asking that the attorney be found to have also violated old rule DR 1-102(A)(6) in that his actions reflected adversely on his fitness to practice law. The Commission also apparently wanted some sort of public sanction, though it’s unclear what they were seeking.

Justice Ternus’ opinion finds that the attorney did, in fact, violate both rules, even though his actions were not illegal. As we all know, conduct can be unethical even if it is legal. The Court additionally found that the attorney should be publicly reprimanded, but that the violations did not warrant a suspension or revocation of his license to practice law.

State of Iowa v. Christopher Leon Christopher(not a typo) – On further review from the Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court upholds the warrantless arrest five weeks after an off-duty officer observed the defendant commit a crime. The Iowa statute allows an officer to arrest someone without a warrant if the officer observes the defendant commit a crime. There is no requirement in the statute or in either the Federal or Iowa Constitutions that warrantless arrests occur within a reasonable time after the crime is observed.

Also, the officer’s motive’s for waiting to arrest someone are irrelevant to the constitutional propriety of the warrantless arrest. But, pretext for waiting to arrest could implicate Due Process, according to the Supremes. But this is really dictum because “Christopher does not contend the government  acted intentionally to gain such a tactical advantage.”

I’m not sure how I missed that name before, though. Why, oh, why, would anyone name their child Christopher Christopher? It doesn’t make sense to me.

In re the Marriage of Becker- A quarry magnate’s wife wants more alimony and gets it. I’ve found that family law cases have very little of interest to me. The decisions are equitable and don’t really implicate any substantive rights. Very rarely is there anything controversial. Congrats to Dan Bray and Chad Kepros for losing on further review.

Overturff v. Raddatz Funeral Services, Inc. – This is a case where an estranged widow sued a funeral home for negligent infliction of emotional distress. The funeral relied on the decedent’s son, who held an apparently valid durable power of attorney for health care decisions from the father, to make decisions regarding the final disposition of the decedent’s body. Since the Iowa Administrative Code gave the son the authority to make those decisions, the funeral home owed no duty to the estranged wife and summary judgment was not an error.

Here I thought this one would be more interesting. By the way, the son’s name is Vane. Why? Did he look like some sort of metal fixture that would tell you the direction of the wind? I don’t get it. I guess at least it wasn’t Vain. He probably would have been walking around with a hand mirror like Vainy Smurf. That would have been unfortunate.

I’ll take the Supreme Court Opinions with a side of onion rings

So, four new opinions from The Supremes today. I was getting disappointed until I read the last one, but we’ll get to that.

Holstein Electric v. Breyfogle – An injury to a wrist should be compensated as an injury to the arm, rather than one to the hand.

In re the Marriage of Briddle – Can’t we all just get along. It appears that the District Court took revenge on the husband in this case for being difficult during the discovery process. Not really a seminal case, in my opinion.

State of Iowa v. McKinney- District Court ordered Bremer County to pay material witness fees to someone held as a material witness to testify at his father’s accused killer. Supremes say the State should pay those, not the County.

And now, for your, um, pleasure (or Mr. Isaac’s):

State v. Isaacs- Mr. Isaacs was convicted of indecent exposure for masturbating outside the bedroom windows of two different women. The women heard noises outside, but never looked to see what they were. There was some knocking on one window and something rubbed against the screen of the other. One of the women called the police, but they didn’t find anything at her house. As one officer was leaving, he saw Isaacs standing at the other woman’s window. The officer yelled, Isaacs turned around, exposing himself to the officer, and took off running. The officer tackled the man, turned him over, placed Isaascs parts back in his pants and arrested him.

Isaacs was convicted of one count of interference with official acts, two counts of harassment and one count of indecent exposure. He appealed the indecent exposure conviction. The Supremes say he’s right. To be convicted of indecent exposure, a person must expose his genitals to another to arouse or satisfy the sexual desires of either party. While Isaacs certainly had exposed himself to satisfy his own sexual desires, no other person actually saw his genitals until the officer yelled. Since Isaacs only inadvertently exposed himself to the officer when he turned and ran, it was not for the purpose of arousing or satisfying either of their respective sexual desires.

Thanks Justice Ternus. Fun stuff. Have a good weekend.

By the way, I almost referred to Isaacs as a seminal case, but chose not to. You can thank me later.