[This article by Matthew A. McGuire and Spencer S. Cady was originally published in the August 2022 issue of The Iowa Lawyer magazine. The 2021-2022 term statistics were compiled by Chris Slack.] The 2021-2022 term of the Iowa Supreme Court concluded on June 30. A…
Stanley Liggins was convicted of first-degree murder from events which occurred in 1990. Liggins was charged with the murder of a nine-year-old child. Liggins’s initial conviction was overturned on appeal in 1994 due to the admission of irrelevant, prejudicial evidence at trial. Liggins was again…
On July 1 the State of Iowa filed a petition urging the Iowa Supreme Court to rehear its June 17 ruling on abortion in Planned Parenthood of the Heartland v. Reynolds. (Read our previous post on the Court’s prior ruling here.) The State requested the…
The Iowa Supreme Court in a 4-3 ruling handed down June 30 overturned a 2004 decision that created a path for challenging Iowa’s law protecting animal confinement operators from nuisance suits as a violation of the inalienable rights clause of the Iowa Constitution. In that…
Under the Sixth Amendment of the United States Constitution, a defendant has the right to effective assistance of counsel. This right includes an entitlement to reasonably necessary ancillary services paid at state expenses, including where the defendant is represented by court-appointed counsel. Iowa Code Section…
The developer of a wind energy project planned in Worth County did not have a “vested right” to continue with the project after the Worth County Board of Supervisors enacted an ordinance the developer claimed doomed the project, a divided Iowa Supreme Court held in an April 24 decision.
The Iowa Supreme Court issued opinions in eleven cases in February 2026. At the links immediately below, you can read On Brief’s analysis of the following opinions:
The State Auditor has broad access under Iowa law to state and local records in conducting audits, including otherwise confidential information, but the Auditor’s access does not extend to records shielded by attorney-client privilege, the Iowa Supreme Court held in an April 17 decision.
The Iowa Supreme Court reversed a $20.5 million Polk County jury verdict against homebuilder D.R. Horton for negligence arising from a subcontractor’s employee being briefly buried under several feet of dirt while working in a trench.
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.
