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.

Mea Culpa

It appears that, in my less than exhaustive search of last week’s Court of Appeals opinions, I missed a win involving my YLD comrade in arms Andy Hosmanek. Andy, I apologize. The case is Windus v. McDonald and looks at the difference between a pure support trust and a discretionary support trust. Congrats to Andy and Tom Hobart who got a Muscatine County order reversed and remanded.

Court of Appeals Opinions

New opinions from the Court of Appeals of Iowa. I didn’t find anything too earth-shattering, but the opinions are located here.

I did want to say congratulations to Court of Appeals Judge and former 6th District Judge Amanda Potterfield. I noticed her name as one of the considering judges in a few of the opinions. I also noticed that one of the orders from her previously life as a district court judge was affirmed by the court of appeals.

Finally, a good friend of mine from law school was on the losing end of an opinion filed today. It was her first appeal, which is more than I’ve done. She says that they are seeking further review. Interesting opinion and, according to her, there were multiple arguments made at trial concerning the propriety of the modification action. We’ll see what happens. Good luck, Erika.

Iowa Supreme Court mails it in

Two new opinions today. It must be vacation time. The opinions are identical per curiam opinions concerning civil commitment proceedings of sexually violaent predators. The Court disposed of all of their identical arguments in opinions decided while these two were pending. Maybe there will be more to look at next week.

Huzzah!!

It appears that all is well with the technology at NPET. Or, at least as well as it can be. I can actually send and receive messages now. It’s a great improvement. That also means that I’m able to receive the court schedules again. So, enjoy.

No beer and no tv make Erek something something . . .

So it’s not really a lack beer and tv I’m lamenting today. It’s my lack of email access. Actually, my partial lack of email access. We moved back into our Cedar Rapids office on Thursday. They unhooked our server to move it at around 7:15 am that morning. By noon, we were supposed to have most of our function back. Apparently, nobody thought to test everything. As it turns out, I can send email, but I can’t receive it. It really is not a good situation for me, or anyone else in our firm, for that matter.

As a result of the failure of our email system, I haven’t been getting the schedules and can’t post them. Sorry. I’m hoping we’ll be back  up and running within the next day or so.

Court of Appeals of Iowa

New opinions from the Court of Appeal of Iowa, today. I didn’t find too much interesting. But there was one casethat caught my eye. Our own Judge Hibbs was reversed on an order denying a motion to confirm an arbitration award. The appellant filed a motion to vacate the arbitration award, but it came after the statutory deadline for filing. Judge Hibbs granted the motion because the appellant claimed that he was not notified of the arbitration in the first place, and only found out about it when he received notice of the arbitration award. I understand the need for deadlines, but, if you believe the appellant, it seems to present a problem.

More Iowa Supreme Court Action

Two new opinions today. The first is State v. Smith (they come up with the most unique case names). Anyway, the State appealed from an order granting Mr. Smith a new trial. Mr.  Smith pled guilty and waived his right to file a motion in arrest of judgment. The Court sentenced him, but failed to inform him of or sentence him to the mandatory lifetime supervision required as a result of his plea to a charge of sexual abuse as an habitual offender. Before resentencing, Mr. Smith filed a motion in arrest of judgment and application to withdraw his plea. The Court granted a new trial.

The Supreme Court of Iowa reversed the new trial grant, saying that this is a matter for post-conviction relief. First, the motion in arrest of judgment was not timely, second, Mr. Smith clearly waived his right to file the motion. So, Mr. Smith goes to jail.

The second case is State v. Helmers. This is another appeal by the State. They’re appealing the bifurcation of Mr. Helmers’ stalking trial. The District Court granted Mr. Helmers’ motion to bifurcate the issues of stalking and the existence of a no-contact order because the probative value of the no-contact order is substantially outweighed by the prejudice it would create. The Supreme Court reversed and remanded saying that the no-contact order was the best evidence the State had of the complaining witness’ displeasure with Mr. Helmers’ actions. According to the Supreme Court, any prejudiced could be “lessoned” (apparently law clerks have a hard time spelling) by an instruction to the jury on the limited use for which the evidence was available. The Court chose not to decide the general issue of whether or not bifurcation of different elements of a crime is allowed under the rules.

Helmers also appealed the District Court’s order posponing ruling on his motion in limine concerning evidence of prior bad acts. The Supreme Court said that, since Mr. Helmers didn’t raise any specific instances of bad acts, only a blanket motion covering all bad acts, the District Court couldn’t really evaluate the evidence. I think Mr. Helmers is probably not “Glee”ful about this opinion.