James Dorsey broke into a home before shooting and killing an unarmed woman just five days after he turned eighteen in 1984. Dorsey was convicted of first-degree murder and he received the mandatory sentence for first-degree murder – life in prison without the possibility of parole. The case before the Iowa Supreme Court …
An emergency dispatcher traumatized by a distraught mother screaming for two minutes “Help me, my baby is dead” is eligible for workers’ compensation benefits even though the job comes with distressing calls, the Iowa Supreme Court ruled June 3.
In 2019, the publicly traded stock of EMC Insurance Group, Inc. (“EMCI”) was acquired in a “going private transaction.” Certain shareholders sued members of EMCI’s board of directors for breaching fiduciary duties owed to public shareholders. Those individual directors moved to dismiss the plaintiffs’ claims, an …
Iowa Supreme Court Justice Brent Appel will retire from the Court effective June 13 after serving on the Court for 16 years. Appel, who turns 72 this year, reached the ma …
Appellate courts have over the past half century given police officers more latitude to make warrantless searches during traffic stops using two of the five senses – sight and touch – to assess whether a suspicious item discovered in a pat-down search is evidence of a crime.
The sense of touch was at issue in a decis …
The Iowa Supreme Court will hear arguments in 11 cases Jan. 18 and 19. Three other cases will be submitted to the court without oral argument. Go to On Brief’s “Cases in the Pipeline” page to read briefs filed in these cases. Following are brief summaries of the January …
In State v. Brimmer, the Iowa Supreme Court was
The plaintiffs in a case before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit regarding the constitutionality of Iowa’s gender balance requirement for the State Judicial Nominating Commission have agreed to dismiss their appeal of an Iowa district court’s denial of their request for a temporary injunction. The cas … A plaintiff may not have access to confidential government records through discovery in a suit brought under the Iowa Public Records Act unless the trial court first rules the records are subject to public disclosure, the Iowa Supreme Court held in a decision handed down Dec. 16. Michelle Vaccaro sued Polk County and Pol …Appeal for injunction dropped in constitutional challenge to gender-balance rule for State Judicial Nominating Commission
Plaintiff seeking confidential government documents in public-records suit must first show they may be released to the public, Iowa Supreme Court holds
On Brief: Iowa’s Appellate Blog is devoted to appellate litigation with a focus on the Iowa Supreme Court, the Iowa Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit.
